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Bomb Found in Carry-On Bag at Alaska Airport: Officials

<p>The oil worker allegedly carrying the device told FBI agents it was to be used for setting off avalanches.</p>

Alaska's main airport shut down one of its security checkpoints for an hour Sunday after an oil worker tried to take a suspected pipe bomb onto a plane, officials said.

The man was arrested at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport and was in custody pending further charges as of 6:30 p.m. (10:30 p.m. ET), NBC station KTUU reported.

Airport operations officer Sharon Long said FBI and bomb-disposal teams were called just before 2 p.m. local time when "a small, handmade explosive device was found at a screening point in a carry-on bag."

Airport police and fire chief Jesse Davis said the device appeared to be a pipe bomb.

The suspect, an oil worker headed for the state's North Slope, told FBI agents that the device was used for setting off avalanches, according to the Anchorage Daily News.

Davis told the newspaper the man was due to board a Shared Services Aviation flight, a joint service by energy firms ConocoPhillips and BP that flies employees and contractors to Alaska's oil-rich North Slope.

Davis said the bomb did not have a triggering device. "It appeared, based on [the bomb-disposal team's] knowledge, that it wasn't an immediate danger to the traveling public," he said.