A New Presence at N.Y. Airports

Passengers trying to leave this scarred metropolis got a glimpse of future U.S. air travel when authorities boarded flights, detained passengers and closed area airports overnight as a precaution.

All but one of a dozen people held for questioning at John F. Kennedy International and La Guardia airports on Thursday were released by Friday morning. Federal authorities said such vigilance will likely be exercised at major airfields across the country.

A week ago, such inconveniences would have outraged passengers. But those stranded Thursday night had nothing but praise for the action.

“I am just outrageously impressed with the ability of these people to find who was on the plane--and it was so fast,” Los Angeles-bound passenger Steve Woolford said, with a snap of his fingers, about the armed raid that shut down his American Airlines flight.

The actions shuttered the two city airports plus Newark International in New Jersey, fanning late-night news reports about possible armed hijackers. On Friday, authorities called those reports false. But they conceded that travelers will experience stepped-up vigilance in the future.

“This activity will continue to occur,” Barry Mawn, assistant director of the FBI’s New York field office, said about the detainments.

“All the security departments of the various airlines are quickly reaching out for us in law enforcement if there is any question about identification, and there is an overabundance of caution, which we are fine with,” he said.

In New York, people were detained in four incidents that had no connection to this week’s attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, federal officials said.

At La Guardia, five people were questioned and released when they were reported to be carrying bags with phony airline crew decals.

At JFK, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey police officers stopped one man who was carrying a counterfeit Federal Aviation Administration pilot’s license and four others who were on a watch list for refusing to leave a canceled flight on Tuesday, the day of the terrorist actions.

The most dramatic incident, however, came when 10 Port Authority officers rushed an American Airlines flight at JFK, pulling off three suspects.

Woolford, 48, managing director of an Internet firm, and Jennifer Fine, 28, chief executive of a Los Angeles toy company, said they were in the business class section of the plane, American Airlines Flight 133.

They said the raid came after the captain came back twice to talk to business class passengers. The first time, he assured them of the safety of the flight, one of the first planned cross-country excursions since airspace had been reopened. The second time, he “chastised” travelers for using their cellular phones as the delays dragged on.

“He saw one woman with headphones,” Fine said. “He grabbed them and said, ‘They’re mine!’ ”

At one point, the captain went on the intercom to say the flight had been cleared for takeoff. But before the plane could depart, passengers were startled by the noise of a man in economy class having an apparent seizure. “He was standing up, kicking the wall and . . . locking his body like he was having a seizure,” Fine said.

When passengers turned to look, several armed Port Authority police jumped through the front curtains, firearms drawn. “These guys came with full SWAT gear and with really, really big guns,” Fine said.

The agents yelled for everyone to get on the floor and put their heads down, Woolford said.

“This is the strangest thing,” Woolford said. “It wasn’t like the movies. Everybody was calm. Everyone knelt in front of their seats. One guy started crying. . . . “

Woolford said officers handcuffed and removed a man sitting two rows in front of him; they also escorted out a female companion. The officers returned to search all overhead bags and ask passengers questions about the pair, Woolford and Fine said.

Five Port Authority officers entered from the rear of the plane and removed a second man, who resisted and had to be subdued, the FBI said Friday. The struggle was apparently the noise that others mistook for a seizure.

The two men were on a “watch list” but were not connected to Tuesday’s incidents, the agency said.

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Times staff writer Eric Lichtblau in Washington contributed to this story.