Faulty Metal Detector Delays Flights in Long Beach
Four departing flights were delayed at Long Beach Municipal Airport on Tuesday night after federal safety officials determined that a walk-through metal detector was not working properly.
Passengers who had already boarded two of the planes were brought back into the terminal and the boarding of two other planes was stopped, said Ann Davis, a spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration.
All of the affected flights were operated by JetBlue Airways.
TSA screeners determined at about 8:45 p.m. that the metal detector had not been operating for about 10 minutes, Davis said.
“Out of an abundance of caution, we decided to rescreen the passengers,” Davis said. “We are rescreening several hundred passengers.”
Davis said nothing unusual had yet been discovered in the second screening, which was still in progress after 10 p.m. She said she did not know when it would be completed.
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