Christmas Incidents Mar Travel

Airline passenger disruptions caused Christmas Day backups at Los Angeles International Airport and diverted one Los Angeles-bound flight Tuesday.

Continental Flight 627 was headed from Houston to Los Angeles on Tuesday afternoon when two unruly passengers caused a disruption, said airline spokeswoman Julie King.

The crew decided to divert the plane to El Paso, King said. The plane landed without incident and the two unidentified passengers were escorted off by local law enforcement officers. The flight continued on to Los Angeles, where it arrived hours late.

Earlier in the day, what LAX officials described as the thoughtless action of a passenger at the Tom Bradley International Terminal led to its evacuation.

Officials believe that the boarding passenger was told that he could not bring wrapped gifts through security and threw them in a trash can instead, airport spokesman Tom Winfrey said.

When the packages were spotted in a trash barrel, security officials summoned a bomb squad and evacuated the terminal. After about two hours, officials determined that the packages were harmless and reopened the terminal shortly after noon.