Members of the cleaning crew found the blade buried in a seatback pocket in Row 29 of Delta Flight 172 after the jet finished a Tokyo-to-New York trip, airport officials said. There were no incidents aboard the plane when it was in the air. The box cutter, though, is a serious security breach because the tools are dangerous and are not allowed on planes.
"How did it get there? That's what I want to know," an airport official said. "Somebody clearly got a box cutter on board and they shouldn't have been able to."
Investigators reported that the blade was "similar" to a box cutter found on board another Delta jet that flew out of Tokyo in November. That plane landed in Portland, Oregon.
FBI spokeswoman Kelly Langmesser said the "team is looking into it."
Agents have the name of the man who was sitting at the spot where the blade was found and are in the process of tracking him down for questioning.
