Posted on: Friday, March 8, 2002

Explosive missing along roadway

By Curtis Lum
Advertiser Staff Writer

A device similar to the one pictured above was lost somewhere along the public roadways near Schofield Barracks. It is described as being 9 inches in length, yellow in color and resembles a flair. US Army

WAHIAWA — Dozens of Army personnel and Honolulu police officers were scouring public roadways near Schofield Barracks last night in search of an explosive device that was lost yesterday during a training exercise for bomb-sniffing dogs.

A man drove as far as five miles without knowing that the device, described as volatile and dangerous, was on his car, officials said.

An Army spokesman said the device can cause serious injury; anyone who finds it should not touch it, and should call 911.

The device is about 9 inches long and yellow and resembles a flare, said Col. Arnaldo Claudio, provost marshal for U.S. Army, Hawai'i. It has a serial number on it, along with the brand name Dyno Nobel, but has no fuse.

The device was lost somewhere between Schofield Barracks' Foote Gate and a gas station on California Avenue in Wahiawa.

Claudio likened the circumstances of the device's disappearance to "Murphy's Law."

The device emits an odor that bomb-sniffing dogs are trained to find. Yesterday afternoon, soldiers hid one of those devices in the undercarriage of a car in a base impound lot, between the muffler and tailpipe, for the dogs to find, Claudio said.

But a man showed up to claim the car and drove off.

The training personnel were more than 100 yards away, and the car was gone before anyone realized it was the target vehicle, Claudio said.

More than 280 cars were in the lot.

"You have all these hundreds of cars and the car that this device is put into belongs to the only guy that that day was going to take the car outside of the impound lot," Claudio said.

Army personnel reached the man by cellular phone. He drove back to the base. MPs searched the car, but the explosive device was gone.

The vehicle had traveled about five miles. It left Schofield's Foote Gate on Kunia Road, drove onto Wilikina Drive to Kamehameha Highway, turned onto California Avenue then North Cane Road, where it made a right to the police station, Honolulu Assistant Police Chief Boisse Correa said. Police joined the search.

The device was reported missing at 3:30 p.m.

Last night's search involved 170 Army personnel and the police Specialized Services Division. Claudio said the search was expected to last through the night into the morning.

"We have walked (the route) back and forth, left and right," he said. "Obviously this will continue through the night and then will intensify in the hours of the morning when we have more daylight."

He said the device contains chemicals "that if played with or if there is any friction or change in temperature to it, it could explode and hurt somebody pretty seriously."

Claudio pointed out that Central O'ahu was pelted with heavy rains yesterday and that the device could have been washed away.