Worker Facing Firing Seized in Fake Bomb Threat That Shut LAX

A former Los Angeles International Airport baggage handler has been arrested on suspicion of telephoning fake bomb threats that shut down the LAX control tower and disrupted air traffic for more than 1 1/2 hours, Los Angeles police said Wednesday.

Michael Dewayne Griffith, 23, was arrested at his home in South Los Angeles on Tuesday night after police received a tip that Griffith had made the threats that forced the airport to close Monday morning, LAPD Detective Rick Kensic said.

Griffith, who quit his job at the airport last week just as he was about to be fired, was booked into Parker Center Jail. He was expected to be arraigned today in Los Angeles Municipal Court on a charge of falsely reporting a bomb.

On Monday, an anonymous caller told officials at the Federal Aviation Administration’s office in Hawthorne that he had hidden explosives in the LAX tower and other parts of the airport.

Fifteen commercial flights were diverted to airports in Ontario, Burbank and San Diego, while nine others were placed in holding patterns over the Mojave Desert for 39 minutes.

After officials determined that the threat was a hoax, the FBI and the FAA were called in to investigate.

Kensic declined to identify the informant whose tip led investigators to Griffith, but the detective said the suspect’s voice matches that of the person who called the threats in to the airport. The threatening call had been tape-recorded.

Griffith had worked for three months as a baggage handler for DynAir Corp., a company contracted by the airport and international carriers to provide baggage handlers. He quit last week on the day he was to have been dismissed, DynAir officials said.

“I was just about to fire him when he called up and said he quit,” said Rick Duke, general manager of DynAir. “He was going to be terminated for poor attendance and a very poor work attitude.”

Duke said Griffith, who unloaded baggage at the Tom Bradley International terminal, often had run-ins with other DynAir personnel.

“Supervisors would ask him to do something and he would become verbally abusive,” Duke said. “He always had problems.”

A woman who identified herself only as Griffith’s sister said the suspect never behaved as if anything was amiss.

“I knew he wasn’t working there (at DynAir) anymore, but he didn’t seem to have problems with it,” said the woman, who declined to give her name. “Even before the police came, he never acted strange. He was calm like any other person.

“I had heard about the (bomb scare) on the news, but I thought it might have been a terrorist. I never expected anything like this. (Griffith) doesn’t know anything about bombs.”