United says pilot was wrong to throw bullets in trash bin, then flush them down plane's toilet

A United Airlines captain threw bullets in a trash bin and later flushed them down a toilet on board a flight he was piloting to Germany.

United isn't identifying the pilot. An airline spokeswoman said Thursday that he hasn't been fired.

The spokeswoman says the pilot is allowed to carry a gun on domestic flights as part of a federal program to make planes harder to hijack. She says the pilot dumped the bullets after realizing he had them on a June 23 flight from Houston to Munich. Germany has strict gun laws.