L.A. Record Executive May Be Trapped : Civilians: He was a transit passenger at Kuwaiti airport when the Iraqis invaded.

A longtime record-industry executive from Los Angeles is apparently one of the many Americans who have been trapped inside Kuwait since Iraqi military forces seized that small country on the Persian Gulf.

Bhaskar Menon, chairman of the board of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry and former chairman and chief executive of EMI Music Worldwide, was a transit passenger at Kuwait’s international airport when Iraqi troops invaded in the early morning of Aug. 2.

He had made a business trip to London and was flying to India to meet his wife and two teen-age sons for a vacation when the British Airways plane on which he was a passenger landed at the Kuwaiti airport to refuel.

According to friends and business colleagues in Los Angeles, the Iraqi invasion began just before the plane landed in Kuwait, and the airport was closed to all further operations 20 minutes after the plane touched ground.

On Thursday, the Bush Administration said Iraq has stated that most of the 3,000 American residents of Kuwait and 580 living in Iraq cannot leave and may be held indefinitely.

“We are worried for his safety, very much so,” said Menon’s longtime secretary, Connie Bufalini.

“Americans who work in that part of the world know the risks. But when you are a traveler on vacation or on business and held against your will, it is very difficult.”

She said that Menon’s wife, Sumitra Menon, was able to speak by telephone with her husband that morning, shortly before phone lines were cut at the airport.

“He said he didn’t know what was going on,” Bufalini said. “They had no access to radio or television or newspapers.

“He said they could see the skies lighting up and obviously they were staying away from windows. They could hear bombs and see fires in the sky, and it was very frightening. He said he was in the airport lounge for about three hours and then was going to be transferred.”

No one has heard from him since that phone call.

Bufalini added that she has since learned that people stopped at the airport were taken to three hotels. A check by the U.S. State Department with two of the hotels did not turn up Menon as a guest, she said, and U.S. officials were unable to get a cable message through to the third location, identified as the SAS Hotel.

Zena Dartnall, a Menon family friend in Los Angeles, said she recently spoke with Sumitra Menon and learned that family members are hoping he is safe inside the SAS Hotel and that he will be allowed to leave unharmed.

“Obviously, they’re very worried and they’re trying to contact him,” she said. “They’re trying to contact the embassies, the State Department here and everywhere else. They’re trying to do their best, but they have had no contact (confirming) that he’s in that hotel, either.”

Menon, 56, was born in India to a prominent family involved in that country’s government. His father was India’s secretary of finance, and his uncle, V. K. Krishna Menon, was foreign secretary and served as ambassador to China and the Soviet Union.

Menon served in various senior executive positions with EMI Music Worldwide from 1956 until his retirement from the company last month. In his current post with the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, he supervises a record-industry trade association with national groups and affiliates in 63 countries.