Officials call off search for dynamite
By Will Hoover
Advertiser Staff Writer
The Army and police called off the search for a lost stick of dynamite yesterday afternoon, saying that the possibility of ever finding the explosive seemed minimal.
The yellow, 9-inch Dyno Nobel device was lost on Thursday after it was placed beneath one of 280 cars at a Schofield Barracks impound lot during a bomb-sniffing dog training exercise.
A massive military and civil search was mounted after the car owner, who was unaware of the training exercise, picked up the car and drove away.
"While the training aid was not found, Col. Arnaldo Claudio, U.S. Army Hawai'i Provost Marshal, asked the community to notify Schofield Barracks military police at 655-7114 or HPD at 911 if they have any information on the whereabouts of the item," said an Army Public Affairs press release issued at 3 p.m. yesterday.
"We had hundreds of people search the routes over 20 times," said 1st. Lt. Andy Mostovoj, Schofield Barracks chief of media relations, "and the device was not found. At this point, the Army and the HPD decided, unless we want to invest a lot more manpower and money for this, we're not going to find it."
HPD Sgt. John Lim said, "We've conducted extensive searches in coordination with the military, using hundreds of personnel — police, military, specialized services — and we've searched the entire route on city and state property on foot, on bicycles and in vehicles.
"We are satisfied that we have done everything that we could, and we are satisfied that the training aid is not on city property."
Lim said his gut feeling was that the explosive never left the base at Schofield and that it washed into the drainage system during heavy rains that hit the area Thursday evening.
"It was in a very precarious position on the muffler," said Lim. "It wasn't fastened or taped. It was just placed on there. And, it was raining cats and dogs that night — a torrential downpour. It was a river running through that place. It's purely speculation, that it washed into the drainage system, but that's the most highly likely thing that happened."
Lim said the city and state workers who had physically checked out the drainage system found nothing.
But he said their conclusion was that if the explosive did end up in the drainage system, in all likelihood, it is now at the bottom of Lake Wilson.
The fuse-less explosive can only be ignited by using a detonator cap, Maj. Gerry Muhl, commander of the U.S. Army Pacific Explosives Ordnance Disposal Control Team said on Friday.
It can't be detonated by running over it or picking it up, Muhl added. But he said the device, when it is detonated, is powerful enough to require a minimum safe zone of 300 feet.
The lost explosive affair began during a routine K9 bomb-sniffing exercise.
The missing stick of commercial-grade dynamite was one of five placed under cars at the impound lot. Four were successfully retrieved by the dogs.
But when the owner of a maroon Oldsmobile Cutlass picked up his car and drove off with the explosive, soldiers conducting the test were too far away to stop him.
The owner drove five miles into Wahiawa before he was alerted by cell phone.
By that time the dynamite stick had fallen off and the search from Schofield Barracks to Wahiawa was begun.
Fliers warning the public of the danger were released, as hundreds of military and civilian personnel fanned out to scour bushes, curbs and gutters.
"And the device was not found," said Mostovoj. "But, it may still be out there. So, we're asking the community if they do see or find it to call us."
Reach Will Hoover at whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8038.
