Man's missing catch sniffed out

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- The stench broke the case of the missing halibut.

A fishy stink led airline officials to what they believe is the 40 pounds of halibut a traveler reported missing from his checked bags two weeks ago.

Brenee Davis, a general manager for Continental Airlines in Anchorage, said the company's baggage handlers discovered "a ton of rotting fish" under a luggage conveyor belt recently at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport.

She suspects it was the halibut passenger Ray Bolanos reported missing from a cooler he checked on a June 24 flight from Anchorage to Seattle. The fish was thrown away immediately.

"We've gone through a few cans of Lysol," Davis said.

Davis' theory is that Bolanos' cooler wasn't properly secured and came open on the conveyor belt.

Bolanos doesn't buy that explanation.

When his fish cooler came off the luggage carousel in Seattle, he said he found a rope he had tied around the chest inside and his 40 individually wrapped one-pound chunks of halibut gone.

"It's not something that was chewed off. It was a clear cut," Bolanos said Saturday, when he was reached on his cell phone in Kenmore, Wash.

Davis said workers initially thought the smell was related to construction at the airport. Then it got worse.

"There was mass migration down there to figure out what the smell was," she said