Woman arrested at Boston airport after bomb scare

BOSTON, Sept 22 (Reuters) A 19-year-old US college student was arrested after she walked into Boston's Logan International Airport wearing what authorities initially thought was an explosive device, police said.

Star Simpson, a sophomore at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told police that the device -- a circuit board measuring roughly 2 inches by 6 inches with protruding wires, lights and a nine-volt battery -- was an art project.

''It was an innocuous device,'' Maj Scott Pare of the Massachusetts State Police said at a press conference yestterday.

Authorities said she would be charged with possession of a hoax device and disorderly conduct. The hoax device charge carries a penalty of up to five years in prison.

Pare said police officers confronted her with automatic weapons.

''Thankfully she complied and so she ended up in a cell and not in a morgue,'' Pare said. ''Had she not complied, deadly force might have been used.'' REUTERS AK PM0510