‘Emergency’ at LAX Was ‘Strange’

Air traffic controllers at Los Angeles International Airport prepared for a full emergency when a private pilot radioed them, frantically reporting that he could hardly breathe and barely see.

All of LAX’s runways were cleared, departing jetliners were ordered to stay put and in-bound flights were instructed to circle so that the ailing flier could land ahead of them. Fire trucks and ambulances rolled when it appeared he was about to fall from the sky.

But when pilot Theodoros Favricanos of Los Angeles finally landed after shutting down the nation’s fourth-busiest airport for 20 minutes, he hardly needed medical help, Federal Aviation Administration officials said last week.

According to them, Favricanos, 32, alighted from his rented, single-engine Cessna in a white top hat and white tuxedo, complete with pink carnation. Then he declared that he was calling a press conference to announce “the formation of a new religion,” the FAA said.

Authorities impounded Favricanos’ plane and told him he wouldn’t be flying for a while.

More than a month after the strange incident, though, FAA investigators are still scratching their heads, trying to figure out whether it was a futile stunt aimed at attracting publicity or whether Favricanos, as he has claimed, was indeed about to crash.

“From an enforcement standpoint, there is no real law against doing what he did--declaring a medical emergency,” said FAA spokeswoman Elly Brekke. “The question now is: If there was truly a medical emergency, is he medically fit to fly an airplane?”

FAA flight surgeons would like to find out. They have requested Favricanos, who has held a pilot’s license since December, 1985, to submit to a medical examination. He’s out of the country, however, reportedly vacationing in Greece.

“This is one of those ones that’s pretty strange,” said Jim Holtsclaw, manager of the control tower at LAX.

Holtsclaw said Favricanos told the FAA that he took off from Burbank late in the afternoon of Sept. 29, felt faint and landed at Santa Monica Airport. Feeling better after walking around his airplane, he took off again, only to feel worse a few minutes later, Holtsclaw said.

Breathing heavily, Favricanos radioed air traffic controllers at LAX and, according to Holtsclaw, declared: “I have blurry vision. I must land immediately. I can’t breathe.”

“So while we’re talking to him, we see (his plane), and he more or less falls out of the sky, almost like a stall,” Holtsclaw said. “The supervisor on duty says, ‘Oh no, he’s going to crash,’ and he gets on the crash phone.”

Reserved for Emergency

Suddenly, at about 600 feet above the ground, Favricanos’ plane appeared to level off and began to circle south of the airport, Holtsclaw said. The tower quickly gave Favricanos permission to land on any runway he wanted--a procedure reserved strictly for emergencies.

“He made three or four approaches, but each time, he said he couldn’t see, and then he’d go around,” Holtsclaw said. “The controller decides, ‘He’s gonna kill himself or somebody else,’ so he starts telling him what to do, how to land.”

The unidentified controller instructed Favricanos when to turn, when to extend his plane’s wing flaps and when to reduce its power. Finally, the little Cessna rolled to a stop after landing on Runway 25 Right.

‘Announce . . . New Religion’

Emergency personnel rushed to the plane. “The guy gets out wearing a white tuxedo and a white hat and says he’s going to announce the formation of a new religion,” Holtsclaw said. “They gave him oxygen and then took his blood pressure. It was normal.”

Even so, airport authorities decided to impound the rented plane for the rest of the day. Favricanos, apparently at his request, was driven to Garrett General Aviation Services Co., an aircraft and pilot center on the airport’s south side.

Adam Frye, a ramp service fuel technician for Garrett, recalled that when Favricanos arrived there, he had “a pink carnation and white tux. There was a TV crew that met him and he stood out there with a brief case and said he wanted a press conference for peace in Africa. We don’t get that kind of thing too often around here.”

Frye said he wasn’t sure what became of Favricanos after the camera stopped rolling, nor could he recall who the camera crew may have represented.

Whatever, Holtsclaw estimated that the landings and departures of as many as 35 aircraft, most of them jetliners, were disrupted by the incident.

“Half of them got stuck at the gate; half of them got stuck in the air. There was a lot of fuel burned, that’s for sure,” Holtsclaw said. “If you listen to the tape, you’d swear this guy had an emergency. Well, maybe he did. But then, maybe he was just a good actor.”