Bomb Scare Halts Flights at Burbank

At least 30 flights and several hundred passengers at Burbank airport were delayed for more than five hours Friday after authorities detained a man whose laptop computer was suspected of being a bomb.

Airport security personnel became suspicious that the laptop was possibly explosive about 4:30 p.m. as it was being screened at the checkpoint leading to Terminal A, which handles flights for Southwest and America West airlines, airport spokesman Victor Gill said.

By 11 p.m. the man was still being detained and questioned, but authorities said they had determined the laptop did not contain explosives.

FBI Special Agent Matthew McLaughlin said the authorities’ concern had been “relative to the X-ray process involving the computer. It may have been difficult to get the resolution they wanted, which forced security to go to other inspection means.”

Airport personnel took a swab sample from the computer and its bag, which “came up positive for a chemical residue of concern,” although the titanium in the laptop might have triggered a false reading, officials said.

Sheriff’s Department investigators and bomb squad technicians responded, as did FBI agents.

People were moved to a nearby baggage claim area and a restaurant was also evacuated. A fire door was lowered between the main terminal building and the checkpoint as a precautionary measure.

As the evening wore on, hundreds of people clogged the airport’s hallways. Some spontaneously sat down in the middle of pedestrian traffic; others found themselves jammed into corners with no way out. Ticket takers blinked back tears as angry travelers demanded answers they didn’t have. Others were stranded in the parking lots after the shuttle service was shut down.

Southwest had the biggest problems of the night, with 14 departures and 16 arrivals affected by the terminal closure. Some passengers waited as long as 4 1/2 hours, spokeswoman Beth Harbin said, with the average flight delay being 2 1/2 hours.

Shortly before 10:30 p.m., a Southwest employee announced that all gates in Terminal A would be opening immediately and the crowd immediately broke into loud cheers and applause.

Though Harbin said she couldn’t estimate the number of passengers affected, she noted that because Friday is a popular travel day, all of the flights were nearly full.

Hundreds had been waiting for hours to see whether their flights would be canceled, Gill said.

Marty Avila, 29, of Alhambra, was waiting for an 8 p.m. Southwest flight to Las Vegas, where she planned to be married Friday night. She fumed as the delay dragged into its second hour.

“My wedding day is all ruined,” she said, while standing outside Terminal A. “This is all chaos, a madhouse. They can’t even tell us anything, and that’s what makes it worse. . . . People are stepping over each other. They’re very grouchy, they’re very loud.”

Megee O’Neall, 44, of Reseda, had a different viewpoint. Referring to the painstaking examination of the laptop, she said, “It’s reassuring in some ways.”

Times staff writers Margaret Talev, Louis Sahagun and Roberto Manzano contributed to this story.