Michael Christopher Estes

Michael Christopher Estes (born June 11, 1971), formerly of Tazewell, Tennessee, is an American man who was arrested on charges of terrorism, after he placed an improvised explosive device at North Carolina's Asheville Regional Airport in 2017.

Incident Estes put an explosive device outside the entrance to the baggage claim area of Asheville Regional Airport after midnight on October 6, 2017. In the backpack, Estes had put gloves, fuel, a roll of tape, and an alarm clock bell that matched the one in the bag near the baggage area.

After being arrested, Estes claimed he had planted the device at the airport to train law enforcement about how explosive devices were made so they would be prepared to fight terrorists that he said were coming to the United States to wage war. Estes pleaded guilty to one count of unlawful possession of an explosive in an airport on January 12, 2018; the first charge was dismissed. He was sentenced to 46 months in prison and two years of probation.

Reactions Civil rights activist Shaun King, writing in The Intercept, said that the lack of media attention was because the suspect was white.

Buncombe County Detention Center's records list Estes as a 46-year-old "American Indian / Alaskan Native".

Jimmie Estes, Michael Estes' father, said he had not spoken to his son in several years and that their relationship had fractured after Michael Estes joined the Navy. Jimmie Estes said that the family was not Native American and that they were of European ancestry, which agrees with other state records.

Other crimes The month before planting the explosive device at the airport, Estes had been jailed on charges of breaking and entering, larceny, and attacking a man with a hatchet and knife in Swain County, North Carolina. Estes had served seven days in prison.