Fake Genade Forces Evacuation
Security screeners at Los Angeles International Airport noticed a suspicious package early Monday, prompting the evacuation of hundreds of travelers. A source said the item turned out to be an inoperative grenade intended as a joke gift.
The bomb squad was called and one person was taken into custody and arrested, said Tom Winfrey, spokesman for Los Angeles World Airports. No other information was immediately available from police.
Screeners spotted the suspicious item in a box as it passed through a scanning machine for departing passengers, Winfrey said. An upper-level ticketing area between two terminals was evacuated, but the lower level remained open.
A government official in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the screener spotted the outline of a grenade inside a gift package in a bag. The grenade was a fake - a gag gift, the official said. The passenger involved was being questioned.
Hours after the 5:45 a.m. evacuation, hundreds of passengers remained stranded outside Terminals 2 and 3, waiting for ticketing and flights to resume.
Mayor James Hahn told reporters at a hastily arranged press conference that it "defies belief (that) someone would pack a hand grenade. ... This is incomprehensible. It causes tremendous apprehension to the traveling public."
He called on authorities to file appropriate charges against the man for his "careless and thoughtless" actions.
Some departing flights were delayed. The affected terminals serve Alaska, American, Horizon, TWA, Air China, Air Canada, Hawaiian Air and Northwest airlines, among others.
On Thursday, an unplugged metal detector triggered the evacuation of five LAX terminals, delaying 400 flights and forcing about 10,000 passengers to be re-screened.
It was the third terminal evacuation at LAX during the past four weeks. Last Thursday five terminals were evacuated and some 10,000 passengers were sent back through security screening when officials discovered that a metal detector was unplugged.
About 400 flights were delayed in that incident.
It was not clear how many flights had been delayed as a result of the latest evacuation, said Harold Johnson, another spokesman for the airport.
The evacuation came as an American Airlines jet made an unrelated emergency landing shortly after takeoff after an engine failed.
By 9:20 a.m. PST (12:20 p.m. EST) the terminals had been reopened and hundreds of stranded passengers began filing in to resume delayed travel plans.
The American Airlines jet, which had been bound for Dulles airport in Washington D.C. with a total of 96 people on board, returned to the Los Angeles airport about 30 minutes after its scheduled departure. The jet landed safely after turning around and banking back over the Pacific coast and reportedly dumping fuel over the ocean.