From the Associated Press:
At 6.40pm, firefighters arrived. After breaking the car's side and back windows they discovered three propane tanks, two gallons of petrol and a load of fertiliser, with fireworks and some cheap alarm clocks as a trigger.
The New York police bomb squad was called in and went to work dismantling the device, defusing it by 11.30pm. Times Square, clogged with tourists on a warm evening, would be shut for 10 hours.
Meanwhile, the police and FBI were pursuing the licence plate attached to the back of the car. Investigators tracked it to a shop selling used car parts in Stratford, Connecticut. They woke the owner at 3am on Sunday and discovered the plate was connected to a different vehicle.
Investigators also spoke to the owner of an auto shop in nearby Bridgeport because a sticker on the Pathfinder indicated it had been sold by his dealership. That also led nowhere.
Then at 7.30am, Detective John Wright slid underneath the car at a lab in Queens and found an identification number stamped under the engine block. That led authorities to a man in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and his 19-year-old daughter, Peggy Colas, who had posted ads on eBay and other websites offering a 1993 Nissan Pathfinder for sale, court papers said.
During questioning on Sunday morning and again Monday, the teenager told investigators that she met the man who bought her car at a supermarket parking lot on 24 April and he took the vehicle for a test drive. She was asking $1,800; he offered $500 less. She agreed and he paid her in cash, with 13 crisp $100 bills.
She said the buyer told her that no bill of sale was necessary and he already had plates. She did not know his name, but she did have a mobile number.
That led to a prepaid mobile phone activated on 16 April that had been used to call Colas several times, investigators said. A check of records showed it was also used to contact a Pennsylvania fireworks shop.
By 11 am on Monday, investigators knew the suspect's name. Agents later showed Colas six photos, including one of Shahzad. Authorities say she picked Shahzad.
Meanwhile, there was more evidence. A set of keys left in the Pathfinder's ignition turned out to belong to a white Isuzu Trooper that Shazhad left parked at New York's JFK airport on Monday night, as well as to his apartment in Bridgeport. At a nearby garage, investigators recovered fireworks and fertiliser, court papers said.
Shahzad was spotted at around 3pm on Monday coming out of a shop near his home and was tailed by investigators. He was also placed on a no-fly list.
Authorities planned to arrest him at his apartment that evening, but Shahzad may have been alerted by news reports that investigators were seeking a Pakistani suspect in Connecticut.
He managed to slip federal surveillance, according to two people familiar with the investigation and a law enforcement official. All spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak about the case.
Shahzad headed for JFK, calling in a reservation for an Emirates flight to Dubai by mobile phone while en route. He paid for the ticket in cash before boarding the plane, authorities said.
Emirates officials were unaware he was on the no-fly list because they did not check a web forum where the latest updates are posted. It was only when a customs agent assigned to the case spotted Shahzad's name on the flight manifest 30 minutes before takeoff that the authorities knew he was on board.
He was belted in to his seat when FBI investigators and police officers boarded the plane and took him into custody.
The time was 11.45pm.
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