World War One artillery shells found in bags at Chicago airport

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Two World War One artillery shells packed in the checked baggage of two American teenagers returning from a European trip were confiscated by security officers at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.

The 75-mm military grade shells, which were determined to be inert, were discovered after the teens arrived from London on Monday and were headed for a connecting flight home to Seattle, a Transportation Security Administration official said.

The teens, aged 16 and 17, told law enforcement they got the shells from a French World War One artillery range located next to a museum that collects war memorabilia, the TSA official said.

No charges have been filed against the teens.

(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg; editing by Gunna Dickson)

Politics & Governmentartillery shells

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Prosthetic leg found on Washington beach returned

KINGSTON, Wash. (AP) — A woman who found a prosthetic leg on a Washington state beach has returned it to its owner.

Hannah Listle posted information on Facebook about the prosthetic she found while looking for shells Sunday at Point No Point beach.

KOMO reports (http://is.gd/YmGyJc) Megan Smith of Poulsbo gratefully claimed the leg Monday. She said she and her husband had been swimming Saturday night when she realized the leg was gone.

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Information from: KOMO-TV, http://www.komotv.com/

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WWI artillery shells found in luggage at O'Hare

CHICAGO (AP) — Baggage screeners at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport have discovered two World War I artillery shells in checked luggage that arrived on a flight from London.

The Transportation Security Administration says the bags belonged to a 16-year-old and a 17-year-old who were returning from a school field trip to Europe.

TSA spokesman Jim McKinney says a bomb disposal crew determined the shells were inert and no one was ever in danger.

The teens told law enforcement they obtained the shells at a French World War I artillery range. It was not clear how.

TSA explosives experts believe they are French 75 mm shells.

They were seized Monday evening while the teens were transferring to a flight to Seattle.

The teens were questioned then allowed to travel onward. They weren't charged.

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Police charge Pa. man found dribbling along I-78

BETHLEHEM, Pa. (AP) — A 22-year-old Pennsylvania man faces charges after police encountered him dribbling a basketball along Interstate 78 near Bethlehem.

The Express-Times of Easton reported Monday (http://bit.ly/V4EZ9e ) that police said Marquis Johnson, of Hatfield, was found on Sunday with a Pennsylvania license plate sticking out from his shirt and shorts, and smelled of marijuana.

Police say a key in Johnson's possession matched a vehicle about 2 miles away that didn't have a license plate.

They say he wouldn't answer questions about the vehicle, and they found marijuana in the car. The vehicle had less than 700 miles on the odometer and was traced to a dealership.

Johnson is charged with unauthorized use of a vehicle, abandoning a vehicle and drug possession. Court records didn't list a defense attorney.

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Information from: The (Easton, Pa.) Express-Times, http://www.lehighvalleylive.com

Crime & JusticeSociety & CultureMarquis Johnson

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Parasites found in Calif. 'sea serpent' dissection

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (AP) — One of two oarfish found in Southern California waters earlier this month had a host of parasites living in its giant, serpent-like body.

Scientists from the University of California, Santa Barbara last week dissected the 18-foot oarfish found off Catalina Island and found large, larval tapeworms in its intestine. An adult spiny-headed worm also was found embedded in the intestine.

Scientists say the discovery of the parasites is important because it tells them what the natural enemies of the oarfish are and could indicate where the elusive fish lives or hunts for food.

A snorkeler found the carcass of the oarfish Oct. 13. Several days later, another oarfish washed ashore in Oceanside.

It's not known how either died.

The rarely seen deep sea-dwelling creatures can grow to more than 50 feet.

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Russia: Surgeon stole heroin found in stomach

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian police say they have arrested a surgeon who stole some of the heroin he had been called on to extract from the stomach of a suspected drug mule.

Police in the Siberian region of Krasnoyarsk say that after investigators discovered that some of the drugs were missing, they searched the surgeon and found a packet containing 5 grams of heroin hidden in his clothing.

The surgeon, who was not identified, was under the influence of narcotics when he was apprehended, according to the police statement issued Tuesday.

If convicted of stealing the heroin, the doctor faces up to 15 years in prison. There was no information about the identity of the suspected drug mule, his travel plans or his fate.

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Missing Iowa border collie found stuck in a tree

DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) — A 7-year-old border collie who was missing from his Iowa home for a few days didn't get very far — he only went up.

Laddy the dog was found Sunday morning stuck up a tree two blocks from his Davenport home, the Quad-City Times reported (http://bit.ly/16eQoa1 ).

"I asked where they found him, and the officer said, 'You'll never believe this,'" said his owner, Cynthia Weeks.

Ron Stevenson was working in the yard of his home when he heard a dog. He had previously heard the dog barking, but he didn't want to complain. However, something was different this time.

"I heard a whining, and I knew something wasn't right. This time, it sounded in distress," Stevenson said.

He followed the sound along his driveway and, counter-intuitively, looked up. There was the dog, at least 10 feet up in the tree.

"He was kind of shielded by leaves on the tree," Stevenson said of the dog, who he thinks maybe ran up the oak tree's gradually sloping trunk but then became too scared to run back down.

Stevenson told the newspaper that he called police and accepted one dispatcher's skepticism.

"They got here pretty fast, but I was getting impatient," he said. "I didn't know if the dog would bite me, but I just sort of shimmied up the tree. I grabbed him by the collar and sort of pulled him. I said, 'It's time for you to get out of this tree.'"

A responding police officer had seen fliers about Laddy and knew where the dog lived. He was reunited with Weeks a short time later.

Weeks said she believes Laddy escaped Friday from an invisible electronic fencing system thanks to a non-working battery in his collar. She said his love for squirrels and chasing things probably led him up the tree. Despite a few abrasions on the pads of his feet, he's otherwise fine.

"He was pretty subdued when he got home," she said. "He's been doing a ton of sleeping."

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Information from: Quad-City Times, http://www.qctimes.com

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Shark found at door of 'Sea Dog' pub on Nantucket

NANTUCKET, Mass. (AP) — A cleaning crew has found an unexpected mess after arriving at Sea Dog Brew Pub on Nantucket: a 5-foot-long shark blocking the door.

Pub manager Jimmy Agnew says he doesn't know why anyone would have dumped the sea creature there.

Nantucket's public works department hauled the dead shark away after its discovery around 7 a.m. Thursday.

But Agnew said the pub fielded calls and questions all day long after word got out about the land shark.

He said a comedian whose band performs at the pub also posted a series of jokes about it on Facebook.

One suggested the shark went to Sea Dog "to meet his chums."

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Hong Kong tycoon's lover found guilty of forging multi-billion dollar will

HONG KONG (Reuters) - A Hong Kong jury found the lover of the late billionaire tycoon Nina Wang guilty on Thursday of forging a will naming him the sole beneficiary of her estimated $4 billion estate.

After more than 20 hours of deliberations, the jury voted 6 to 2 in the High Court to convict Peter Chan, formerly known as Tony Chan, on a charge of forgery. Chan had pleaded not guilty to a number of charges, including forgery and using a forged document.

The proceedings had transfixed Hong Kong with revelations of adultery and bizarre rituals associated with "feng shui", a Chinese philosophy meaning "wind-water", aimed at creating harmonious surroundings and harnessing natural energies.

Wang, known as "Little Sweetie", was one of Asia's wealthiest women, with a business empire including the Chinachem Group, Hong Kong's largest private property developer. She died of cancer in 2007, aged 69.

The verdict is the latest setback for the married Chan, who in March was ordered to pay HK$340 million ($43.8 million) in tax arrears, and has been hit by the lengthy and costly legal battle for Wang's estate that he lost in 2011.

Chan changed his name from Tony after that ruling and converted to Christianity this year.

After Thursday's verdict, Chan appeared flushed and lowered his head in the witness box, but showed no outward emotion.

"Without the lawsuits, I would not have gone to church and would not have experienced God," Chan told the South China Morning Post in an earlier interview. "I have no regrets."

In 2011, the High Court upheld a previous judgment that a 2006 will leaving Wang's entire $4 billion estate, one of Asia's largest fortunes, to her former lover and feng shui master was a forgery. Instead, it upheld an earlier will bequeathing her fortune to a charitable foundation.

The jury had earlier been asked by Justice Andrew Macrae to put aside personal feelings in making their judgment, the South China Morning Post reported, amid extensive media coverage.

The judge is expected to issue a sentence on Friday morning.

(Reporting by Brian Yap, Grace Li and James Pomfret; Editing by Ron Popeski)

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Israeli who murdered his parents used tips he found online

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Remains of New York woman missing for 28 years found in wall

By Francesca Trianni

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The remains of a New York schoolteacher who disappeared nearly 28 years ago have been discovered hidden in a false basement wall in the house where she lived with her husband, police said on Tuesday.

JoAnn Nichols was 55 years old when her husband James reported her missing in 1985, police in Poughkeepsie, New York, said. He died in December of natural causes, they added.

The remains were found when a contractor was asked to clean out the wood-frame house in Poughkeepsie, about 65 miles north of New York City. The house was filled with hoarded items and garbage, they said.

The remains were identified as belonging to the missing woman on Monday through dental records.

James Nichols told detectives he last saw his wife when he left for work at IBM in December 1985, according to Poughkeepsie Journal archives.

Her body was discovered wrapped in a sheet and plastic bag, tied with rope and placed in a fetal position inside a plastic container that was found in a false wall, said Kari Reiber, the county's medical examiner.

The location where she was found was enclosed, which might have helped hide the body's existence, she said.

"There might have not been any odor, even if she was there for a long time," Reiber said.

An autopsy revealed that Nichols, who taught first grade, died of blunt head trauma, Reiber said.

"She was struck in the head," she said. "It is being ruled a homicide."

After Nichols went missing, her husband was never ruled out as a suspect, said Poughkeepsie Police Captain Paul Lecomte.

Nichols taught her last class on December 20, 1985, when school let out for the winter holidays. The next day, she failed to show up for a salon appointment, according to the local newspaper's archives.

The couple had one child, who drowned at age 25, three years before Nichols' disappearance.

(Reporting by Francesca Trianni; Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and David Brunnstrom)

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Giant, fluorescent pink slugs found on mountain

(NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service)

It would seem to be something you'd see only in a cartoon or at a Phish concert, but according to park rangers in New South Wales, Australia, dozens of giant, fluorescent pink slugs have been popping up on a mountaintop there.

"As bright pink as you can imagine, that's how pink they are," Michael Murphy, a ranger with the National Parks and Wildlife Service, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. "On a good morning, you can walk around and see hundreds of them."

The eight-inch creatures have been spotted only on Mount Kaputar, a 5,000-foot peak in the Nandewar Range in northern New South Wales.

Scientists believe the eye-catching organisms are survivors from an era when Australia was home to rainforests. A series of volcanoes, millions of years of erosion and other geological changes "have carved a dramatic landscape at Mount Kaputar," the park service wrote on its Facebook page, and unique arid conditions spared the slugs from extinction.

They "probably would have long since vanished, if a volcano had not erupted at Mount Kaputar about 17 million years ago," Ben Cubby wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald. "The result of that eruption is a high-altitude haven for invertebrates and plant species that have been isolated for millions of years, after Australia dried out and the rainforests receded."

And they're not the only unusual inhabitants on the mountain.

"We've actually got three species of cannibal snail on Mount Kaputar, and they're voracious little fellas," Murphy said. "They hunt around on the forest floor to pick up the slime trail of another snail, then hunt it down and gobble it up."

If you're not into pink slugs - check out other pink creatures:

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Proven authority before visiting the House where Ohio women found

By Kim Palmer and Daniel Trotta

CLEVELAND (Reuters)-As three Cleveland women reunited with their families on Monday after vanishing for about a decade in their own neighborhood, police scoured the house they escaped from for clues on how they could be held captive for so long with no one noticing.

Cleveland authorities said there was one attempt to visit the home in 2004 on an unrelated matter but no one answered the door. They said they combed through records and found no other calls to the house nor reports of anything amiss in the years the women were missing.

But neighbors said they had made more than one call to police about suspicious activity at the house.

Amanda Berry, 27, who disappeared in April 2003, along with Gina DeJesus, 23, who vanished in 2004, and Michelle Knight, 32, who went missing in 2002, were held captive at the house.

Rescued with them on Monday was a 6-year-old girl who police said was Berry's daughter. She would have been conceived and born during Berry's captivity.

Israel Lugo, a neighbor, said he called police in November 2011 after his sister saw a girl at the house holding a baby and crying for help. He said police came and banged on the door several times but left after no one answered.

Lugo said about eight months ago, his sister saw Ariel Castro, who owns the house, park his school bus outside the house and take a large bag of fast food and several drinks inside.

"My sister said something's wrong ... That's when my mom called the police, "he said. Lugo said police came and warned Castro not to park the bus in front of his house.

Cleveland police, who had brothers Ariel Castro, 52, Pedro Castro, 54, and Onil Castro, 50 arrested as suspects in the case, did not immediately respond to repeated requests seeking comment about the reported calls.

At a news conference on Tuesday, Mayor Frank Jackson said: "We have no indication that any of the neighbors, bystanders, witnesses or anyone else has ever called regarding any information, regarding activity that occurred at that house on Seymour Avenue."

Monday evening's rescue, described as a "miracle" by one family member, unfolded with a frantic emergency call from a woman who told a 911 operator she was Amanda Berry, the subject of years of searches.

Berry had escaped from the two-story house in the low-income neighborhood on Cleveland's West Side with the help of a neighbor who told police he heard screaming and helped her kick out a locked screen door.

SEARCHES OVER THE YEARS

The disappearances of Berry and DeJesus were well known in Cleveland, although Knight's disappearance had attracted less attention, police said. Just last month a vigil was held to mark the ninth anniversary of DeJesus ' disappearance.

Anthony Quiros, 24, who grew up next door to the house where the women were found, said Ariel Castro had been an onlooker as police dug up the lot in Cleveland looking for remains in the case on a tip that proved false.

"He also came to a vigil and acted as if nothing was wrong," said Quiros. He said He saw Castro comforting DeJesus's mother about a year ago.

Born in Puerto Rico, Ariel Castro played bass in Latin music bands in the area. Records show he was divorced more than a decade ago and his ex-wife had since died. He is known to have at least one adult daughter and son.

On a Facebook page believed to be his, Castro said last month that he had just become a grandfather for a fifth time. Court records show he was arrested in 1993 on a domestic violence charge that was subsequently dismissed. THE

Neighbor Anthony Westry said a little girl often could be seen peering out the attic window of the Castro house.

"She was always looking out the window," he said. Castro would take her to the park to play very early in the morning, "not around the time you would take kids to play," he said.

Berry had last been seen leaving her job at a fast-food restaurant the day before her 17th birthday in April 2003, and Gina DeJesus was last seen at a telephone booth as she was walking home from school.

A man who helped to look for DeJesus, Pastor Angel Arroyo, said he and her family members had handed out flyers years ago in the neighborhood where she was found.

"We didn't search hard enough. She was right under our nose the whole time, "Arroyo said.

The neighborhood houses are typically separated only by a driveway. Two houses to one side of the Castro house are "boarded up.

Children and Family Services authorities went to the house in January 2004, more than a year after Knight disappeared and eight months after Berry went missing, because Ariel Castro had left a child on a school bus, the mayor said.

They "knocked on the door but were unsuccessful in connection with making any contact with anyone inside that home," he said.

Police said Castro had been interviewed extensively during that investigation and no criminal intent was found regarding the child left on the bus.

By law, the Castro brothers must be charged within 36 hours of their arrests, which took place on Monday evening.

"BELIEVE IN MIRACLES"

After their rescue, the three women were taken to a local hospital, reunited with family and friends, and released.

"If you don't believe in miracles, I suggest you think again," DeJesus ' aunt Sandra Ruiz said to reporters on Tuesday in Cleveland. Her comments were televised by local station WJW.

"This is a miracle," Ruiz said. But she added: "Watch who your neighbor is because you never know."

The case is not the first time Cleveland has witnessed a horrific story close to home that raised questions about the thoroughness of police investigations.

In 2009, police discovered at home in Cleveland where Anthony Sowell had imprisoned and killed 11 women. Family members of some victims filed a lawsuit against the city, complaining about the police's handling of the case.

Sowell was convicted in 2011 and is on death row.

The FBI and other law enforcement officials were searching the Castro house as well as other properties, said police, who did not elaborate.

Neighbor Joe Popow said he found it chilling to have known Castro.

"After all this has happened, I think, Oh my God, what did I miss? This person came to my house, "he said.

During her 911 call, Berry can be heard naming Ariel Castro as the man she was fleeing from, and she indicated she knew her disappearance had been widely reported in the media.

"Help me! I'm Amanda Berry. ... "I've been kidnapped and I've been missing for 10 years and I'm here. "I'm free now," Berry can be heard saying in a recording of the call released by police.

The discovery of the three women was reminiscent of the case of Jaycee Dugard, who was snatched from her northern California home at age 11 by a convicted sex offender, Phillip Garrido, and kept in captivity for 18 years before being rescued in 2009.

During that time she was repeatedly raped by her abductor and gave birth to two girls, fathered by him.

Dugard released a statement on Tuesday, saying: "As simple As it sounds, these women need the opportunity to have the privacy to heal and reconnect."

"I know individuals are strong in spirit and can be resilient in crisis. I wish them the best in their journey, "she said.

(Additional reporting by Barbara Goldberg, Greg McCune and Atossa Abrahamian Araxia; Writing by Ellen Wulfhorst; Editing by Grant McCool, Bernard Orr)

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Woman seeks home for World War II letters found in the hatbox

On the southern edge of Louisiana, there is almost as much water as the Earth. You cannot drive to someone's home, you have to travel by boat and sometimes there are hours of water between neighbors. It takes a special breed to make a home here, in the swamp, between mosquitoes and hurricanes almost a year. But those who call it home, I love it. See a magical space of quietude strange and subtle green and grey ruffle where time nobody cares and the freedom of the water is at your fingertips.

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Message in a bottle found after 28-year trip from Canada to Croatia

 A message in a bottle traveled almost 5,000 miles from Canada to Croatia (File/AFP)In 1985, a man named Jonathon dropped a message in a bottle to a woman named Mary. Twenty-eight years later, the message in a bottle was discovered after having made a voyage of almost 5,000 miles from Canada to Croatia.

“Mary, you really are a great person. I hope we can keep in correspondence. I said I would write,” reads the message, which was published in the Toronto Star. “Your friend always. Jonathon. Nova Scotia 1985.”

According to the AFP, the bottle traveled approximately 4,971 miles between the two points.

The bottle was discovered by Matea Rezik, who said she found it washed up on the banks of the Neretva river.

Rezik then posted a picture of the message, saying she wanted to help reunite Mary and Jonathon. Since then, people have been posting about the message across social media sites in an attempt to find out exactly who the two are, where they might live and even if they're still alive.

Of course, others have been understandably confused as to why Jonathon would attempt a correspondence via a message in a bottle dropped into the ocean.

In August 2012, an even older bottled message was discovered that had been adrift for 98 years, setting a Guinness world record. But there was little mystery about that message, as it was part of an experiment by the government of Scotland. And that bottle didn’t travel far, being discovered at a relatively close distance from where it had been deposited nearly a century before.

So how exactly did Jonathon’s bottle travel thousands of miles before ending up in a brush pile alongside a Croatian river?

The Toronto Star says that over the years, the bottle likely traveled across the Atlantic, passed through the Mediterranean Sea, the Strait of Gibraltar and finally through the Adriatic Sea in order to reach the Neretva.

Those lengthy journeys are not entirely unheard of. In August 2011, a girl in Hawaii discovered a message in a bottle written by an Oregon boy. That message managed to travel more than 2,000 miles in a single year.

"Dear finder of my message, My name is Thomas and I live in Oregon,” the message read. “I'm ten years old and this week I'm salmon fishing deep in the ocean. I would like to hear from you."

Sure enough, Thomas Craig and Trinity Ballesteros, the then 9-year-old girl who discovered the bottle, have become pen pals.

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Eyeballs found in trash at Kansas City gas station

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Police say they are trying to determine how a medical box containing a pair of eyeballs ended up in a trash bin at a gas station in Kansas City.

Police spokesman Steve Young says a worker at a Conoco station in the city's north called police after finding the cardboard box late Wednesday. The box was labeled, "Keep refrigerated."

Young says police aren't sure if the eyes are human, or whether any crime has been committed. Surveillance video shows two men in a blue Toyota leaving the package on the trash bin.

Police say no eye banks or hospitals in the area were awaiting delivery of any eyeballs.

The Jackson County Medical Examiner's office is holding the package while the investigation continues.

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Eyeballs found in KC gas station trash not human

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Police say a pair of eyeballs found in a medical box in a Kansas City gas station's trash bin aren't human.

Police spokesman Steve Young said Thursday that the police lab examined the eyeballs and determined they likely came from a pig.

Young says a worker at a Conoco gas station in northern Kanas City called police after finding the cardboard box late Wednesday. The box was labeled, "Keep refrigerated."

Surveillance video shows two men in a blue Toyota leaving the package on the trash bin.

Young says police aren't investigating further because no crime appears to have been committed. Earlier, police had said that no eye banks or hospitals in the area were awaiting delivery of any eyeballs.

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3 of 4 stolen from Calif. reptiles. found

FRESNO, California (AP)--three of the four reptiles that were scrubbed from a Science Museum and thrown together in a bag of garbage during a robbery were recovered Friday, although a Python by 3 feet long remained at large, officials said.

The 3.5-foot monitor lizard savannah, a 7-foot boa Red-tailed length and another 3-foot-long ball python were in good condition, said Mary Ellen Wright, Director of the Center for discovery of Fresno. The authorities were looking for missing python in an area frequented by a suspect, who was arrested.

Wright had been worried about containment of the reptiles together in the bag "because they are deadly enemies," he said.

"It would be like throwing two pit bull in a closed room," he added, noting that the monitor lizard has sharp claws, 2-inch.

The reptiles were taken in a robbery that has puzzled officials and Museum authorities, who have not released a motive. The Museum's education Coordinator, Ian Goudelock, said that the suspect does not seem to be out to intentionally hurt animals even if the Museum planned for the reptilians controlled by a veterinarian.

"It's just a weird theft. We're still trying to figure out why, "he said. "Kind of more or less have a happy ending."

Surveillance Video showed the suspect broke into the Central California Museum sometime late Wednesday or early Thursday, smashing tanks that hold the four reptiles — worth hundreds of dollars — and popped in a garbage bag.

The suspect also went into a souvenir shop and stole the children's toys, the telephone system and the safety monitor, Fresno Bee reported.

Fresno police have not released the suspect's name.

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Information from: The Fresno Bee, http://www.fresnobee.com

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Air France: Man found in cockpit not an employee

A 61-year-old French man was arrested at Philadelphia International Airport and charged with impersonating a pilot after airline officials found him in the cockpit of a plane scheduled for takeoff, police said Friday.

The crew of a US Airways flight bound for West Palm Beach, Fla., found Philippe Jernnard of La Rochelle, France, in the jump seat behind the pilot on Wednesday evening, removing him after he was unable to produce valid credentials and became argumentative, police said.

Jernnard, who was a ticketed passenger, was wearing a white shirt with an Air France logo and had a black jacket with epaulets on the shoulders, police said. Officer Christine O'Brien said police found him in possession of a counterfeit Air France crew member ID card.

Air France said Jernnard is not one of its employees and was not wearing the airline's uniform.

It's not clear how Jernnard got into the cockpit, but one security expert said he didn't view it as a breach.

Pilots can typically ride for free in the jump seat of another airline, but they must make arrangements ahead of time and their presence would be noted on a passenger manifest. That manifest is reviewed by the pilot before takeoff — meaning that Jernnard didn't have a chance of remaining, said Douglas Laird, former security director for Northwest Airlines.

"The guy can't do any harm sitting up there. He has no access to the controls sitting there. I think the system worked," said Laird, who now runs an airline security consultancy in Reno, Nev.

Police said there's no indication Jernnard meant any harm. A US Airways spokeswoman referred questions to the FBI, which confirmed it is investigating but declined to comment Friday.

O'Brien said Jernnard initially became upset at the gate when he asked to be upgraded to business class.

"The (US Airways) employee gate agent told the male there was no space left in business class. He became irate," O'Brien said.

Jernnard then boarded the plane and made his way to the jump seat.

He was charged with criminal trespass, forgery, records tampering, false impersonation of a person privately employed, and providing false identification to law enforcement. He was jailed on $1 million bail pending a preliminary hearing scheduled for April 5. Federal charges are also expected.

Jernnard is represented by the Philadelphia public defender's office, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In France, police in La Rochelle as well as the national police declined to comment, saying they are not allowed to disclose information about individuals.

Jernnard's stunt mirrored one by con man Frank Abagnale Jr., whose exploits were chronicled in the 2002 hit film "Catch Me If You Can." In the movie, Abagnale, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, is able to make his way into a plane's cockpit, bluffing his way past security and distracting the FBI by donning a pilot's uniform.

Laird said he can recall a few other cases before the Sept. 11 attacks in which civilians talked their way into the cockpit and were not discovered until the planes had actually taken off.

"If you are civilian, you can't pass yourself off as an Air France pilot because within about 30 seconds the pilots go, 'This guy has not a clue,'" Laird said. "It would be like you and I passing ourselves off as surgeons."

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Rubinkam reported from northeastern Pennsylvania. Associated Press Writer Greg Keller in Paris contributed to this report.

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Police: Man found in cockpit at Philly airport

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A 61-year-old French man was arrested at Philadelphia International Airport and charged with impersonating a pilot after airline officials found him in the cockpit of a plane scheduled for takeoff, police said Friday.

The crew of a US Airways flight bound for West Palm Beach, Fla., found Philippe Jernnard of La Rochelle, France, in the jump seat behind the pilot on Wednesday evening and removed him after he became argumentative, police said.

Jernnard, who was a ticketed passenger, was wearing a white shirt with an Air France logo and had a black jacket with epaulets on the shoulders, police said. Officer Christine O'Brien said police also found him in possession of a counterfeit Air France crew member ID card.

It's not clear how Jernnard got into the cockpit, but police said there's no indication he meant any harm. A US Airways spokeswoman referred questions to the FBI, which confirmed it is investigating but declined to comment Friday.

O'Brien said Jernnard initially became upset at the gate when he asked to be upgraded to business class.

"The (US Airways) employee gate agent told the male there was no space left in business class. He became irate," then boarded the plane, O'Brien said.

Jernnard was charged with criminal trespass, forgery, records tampering, false impersonation of a person privately employed, and providing false identification to law enforcement. He remained behind bars pending a preliminary hearing scheduled for April 5. Federal charges are also expected.

Jernnard is represented by the Philadelphia public defender's office, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In France, police in La Rochelle as well as the national police declined to comment, saying they are not allowed to disclose information about individuals.

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