Two Utah teens arrested in alleged high school bomb plot

(CBS/AP) SALT LAKE CITY - Police arrested two Utah high school students who authorities say were plotting to set off a bomb during a school assembly and escape in a stolen plane.

Dallin Morgan, 18, and a 16-year-old boy were pulled out of school Wednesday and arrested after authorities learned of the plot, Roy police spokeswoman Anna Bond said Thursday.

The students prepared by logging hundreds of hours on flight simulator software on their home computers, and they planned to take a plane at Ogden Hinckley Airport after the bombing, Bond said.

The juvenile hinted at the plan in text messages to a friend, writing that both suspects wanted "revenge on the world" and "we have a plan to get away with it too."

He hinted at the plan by writing "explosives, airport, airplane" and added, "We're just gonna kill and fly our way to a country that won't send us back to the U.S.," according to a probable cause statement police filed to make the arrests late Wednesday.

The juvenile told investigators he was so "fascinated" by the 1999 Columbine High School massacre that he visited the Littleton, Colo., school and interviewed the principal about the shootings that killed 13 people.

Morgan was being held on $10,000 bail at Weber County jail on suspicion of conspiracy to commit mass destruction. The juvenile was in custody at Weber Valley Detention Center on the same charge. Prosecutors were also weighing possible additional charges.

Bond said authorities did not know what date the two were planning to set off explosives but they had been planning the attack for months.

Local and federal agents searched the school, two vehicles belonging to the suspects and their homes but found no explosives. The FBI is examining the suspects' computers, police said.

The other Roy High School student who received text messages tipped authorities to the plot Wednesday, said the school's safety specialist, Nate Taggart.

The student "came forward and had some suspicions but not a lot of information - enough that it gave administration the ability to make some connections and identify the students involved," Taggart said.

The school has about 1,500 students.