CAIRO — Two men who found a travelbag containing a bomb on a Manhattan street last month — and then walked off with the bag but left the bomb — were not just employees of EgyptAir but in-flight security officers for the carrier, two officials at the airline said on Friday.
Surveillance footage showed two men finding the bag on West 27th Street on the evening of Sept. 17, soon after a bomb exploded on West 23rd Street, injuring 31 people and triggering terrorism fears across the region.
In the video, the men were seen pulling from the travel bag a white plastic bag that contained a pressure cooker connected to wires and a mobile phone. They left the white bag on the sidewalk and walked away with the travel bag. The bomb did not explode, and investigators have said that the men may have inadvertently disabled the device.
The two men, identified as Hassan Ali and Abou Bakr Radwan, had flown to New York from here, serving as unarmed security guards on the flight, the officials said.
The bag they found contained one of several homemade bombs that prosecutors say were planted that day in New York and New Jersey by Ahmad Khan Rahami, an Afghan-born American citizen.
American investigators released footage of the two men, appealing for help in identifying them.
The EgyptAir officials who identified them as Mr. Ali and Mr. Radwan spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. The officials said they believed that the two employees were not connected to Mr. Rahami or the bomb plot.
“They didn’t know what was in it,” one of the officials said of the travel bag. Mr. Ali “told me he saw it and thought it was nice,” the official recalled. “He opened the bag to check it out and found a pot.”
Mr. Ali did not want to go to the trouble of flying the pot back to Cairo, the official said, so he put it aside and left with the travel bag.
“You know, we see things left on the street in New York all the time,” the official said. “Stuff no one wants. It’s normal to take them.”
The two men told friends and colleagues that they had not read the news or realized the significance of their find until Egyptian reporters started calling EgyptAir, the officials said.
One of the officials said Mr. Ali and Mr. Radwan flew back to Cairo the day after the episode. American investigators have not been able to interview them, the officials said.
Abou Bakr Radwan, who works as an in-flight security officer at EgyptAir.
Egyptian police officers went to Cairo International Airport on Friday to question the two men but were unable to find them because it was their day off, one of the officials said.
Mr. Ali and Mr. Radwan have not been disciplined by EgyptAir, staff members of the airline said. Tarek Attiya, a spokesman for the police, said he could not deny or confirm any of the developments.
Friday’s revelation is troubling for Egypt, whose aviation security procedures have come under intense scrutiny after three major air disasters in the past year.
In October 2015, a Russian plane crashed into the Sinai Peninsula after what may have been a terrorist bomb brought it down. In March, a passenger wearing a fake explosives belt hijacked a domestic EgyptAir flight and diverted it to Cyprus. The crisis was resolved within hours when the man, later determined to be psychologically troubled, surrendered.
In May, EgyptAir Flight 804 plunged into the Mediterranean, en route to Cairo from Paris, killing all 66 people on board. The cause of the crash is still under investigation.
EgyptAir employs in-flight security officers like Mr. Ali and Mr. Radwan to maintain order during flights and to ensure that planes are secure during stopovers at foreign airports. Unlike the undercover air marshals who travel on American carriers, Egyptian security officials are unarmed and can be identified by an understated uniform. Generally, one security officer sits near the front of the cabin and another toward the rear. In some foreign airports they are responsible for searching workers who clean planes between flights. When a plane is in the air, they sometimes deal with unruly passengers.
They receive modest training and are typically paid about $400 a month. Before the identities of the men who found the bag were revealed, Dina el-Fouly, a spokeswoman for EgyptAir, said that they were not EgyptAir workers and that the men shown in the surveillance footage did not resemble any of their employees. Ms. Foulycould not be reached for comment after the men were identified.
But images from Mr. Radwan’s Facebook page appear to match one of the men in a photograph released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The F.B.I. declined to comment.
Both Mr. Ali and Mr. Radwan have no known political affiliations, according to several EgyptAir officials. “These guys are harmless; they would be useless in a fist fight,” one of the airline officials said. “They cannot be in any way involved.”
“They don’t understand that they are wanted as witnesses,” he said. “They are shocked and scared now. Radwan is especially scared. The poor guy is always anxious.”
“Please, I cannot say anything,” Mr. Radwan said when reached by phone on Friday. “There is a spokesperson for the company. Speak to them.” He then ended the call.
Mr. Radwan’s last public post on Facebook came a day before the attacks in New York and New Jersey. It is a video of a man urging people not to associate Islam with terrorism.
Several attempts to reach Mr. Ali on Friday through an intermediary were unsuccessful.
Declan Walsh contributed reporting from New York, and Adam Goldman from Washington.