Jetliner Greeted in Force at LAX

Minutes after landing at Los Angeles International Airport on the final leg of her round-the-world tour, Nouritsa Biberian, 19, had her first American experience: Armed guards boarded her Singapore Airlines plane and shouted orders.

“Put your hands up!” a SWAT officer told the 126 passengers and 18 crew members of Flight 20.

Terence Lee, a Singapore dentist flying in for a convention, said he “thought it was some new anti-terrorism thing.” Lee said that a third guard arriving in the cabin said, “It’s OK, put your hands down; it doesn’t matter anymore.”

As it neared the end of its 18-hour flight, the plane had been transmitting the signal for a hijacking. The alarm code has to be manually entered by the pilot. Air traffic controllers in Los Angeles had seen the alert and contacted the pilot, who assured them that the transponder was malfunctioning, said Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Donn Walker.

But officials on the ground took no chances.

An F-16 military jet was dispatched to accompany the plane, a long-range Airbus A340-500, into the area. SWAT and hostage negotiation teams from the FBI and LAPD rushed to the scene.

The plane landed in a remote section of the airport at 5:25 p.m., a few minutes before its scheduled arrival and about half an hour after local and federal law enforcement agencies had been alerted about the possible threat.

Within minutes of the landing, FBI agents determined the alarm to be false -- something they said they could not know for certain until the plane was boarded and investigated.

“We had a complete rapid response team in place, as well as our counterparts,” said FBI spokeswoman Laura Bosley. “In that sense, it keeps you sharp.”

On board the plane, however, passengers on the longest nonstop flight into Los Angeles said that at first they had no idea anything was awry.

“We landed on a remote landing strip almost empty, then all of the sudden there was a ladder and the military police or someone came up on the plane with big guns and heavy equipment,” said Dr. Chusilp Charn.

Charn also had been at the airport on July 4, 2002, when a gunman went on a shooting rampage at the ticket counter of El Al Israel Airlines.

“I don’t know why it keeps happening with me,” he said.

Biberian, a British teenager, said she had heard that fear of terrorism was so high in Los Angeles that some people didn’t want to go to the mall.

“Now,” she said Monday night, “I’m not sure what to expect next.”

For at least one passenger, the incident seemed to be an authentic Hollywood experience.

When she saw the men with guns, Christine Herrin, 19, said she thought: “Oh, cool, it’s a SWAT team just like in the movies.” Herrin, who is from the Philippines, said she put her hands in the air as instructed, but wasn’t scared.

“But the guns were really big,” she said. “Bigger than they show on TV.”

For Albert Ng, 41, of Singapore, the delay was unexpected and unwelcome. Ng, vice president of a semiconductor company, was waiting at the airport for two colleagues to arrive. He said they had flown the airline because it is known for being on time.

When his co-workers made it out of customs shortly after 7 p.m., Ng rushed them through the terminal doors to face a more predictable hazard: freeway traffic.

“We have to drive to Orange County for a business dinner,” Ng said. “It’s good they’re safe, but we’re going to be very, very late.”

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Times staff writers Megan Garvey and Jennifer Oldham contributed to this report.