A man was arrested over the weekend for allegedly attempting to carry a firecracker and multiple lighters through security at Omaha’s Eppley Airfield.
Che Kristian Salpas was charged via criminal complaint in federal court with carrying an explosive into an airport, a felony that carries up to five years in prison. A criminal complaint is typically a precursor to a formal indictment. The case was unsealed on Monday.
According to the complaint, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms was contacted by the Omaha Police Department on Saturday after TSA agents found a butane lighter and an “explosive device” that was hidden inside of a prescription pill bottle in Salpas’ carry-on luggage at the airport. Two more lighters were allegedly found in his luggage.
Salpas had a ticket on a Delta Airlines flight to Salt Lake City, Utah, that was scheduled to depart Eppley Airfield at 12:42 p.m. on Saturday.
The device was a cardboard tube with a green hobby fuse in the center. OPD’s bomb squad responded and found that the tube was “completely filled with a powder” and was “indicative of an M-Series explosive device.”
An X-ray of the device showed “a material inside the tube which is indicative of being energetic material.” A thermal susceptibility test to determine if the material is explosive has not yet been completed, according to the complaint, and the tube is being held at the bomb squad’s evidence locker until the test can be safely completed.
According to the complaint, Salpas agreed to speak with ATF and FBI agents after he was detained. He said he saw what he called a “firecracker” at his parents’ home in Lincoln, but said he did not place it in his bag and did not know who it belonged to. Salpas told TSA agents that the pill bottle with the firecracker inside “shouldn’t have been in his bag,” according to the complaint.
An initial hearing date for Salpas has not yet been set.