Airport Bomb Threats Delay Flights

Bomb threats at four Southern California airports and a toy mistaken for a possible explosive at a fifth caused morning flight delays and confusion Tuesday.

Each airport handled the threats differently: Long Beach officials conducted a four-hour search and closed off the terminal while officials at Los Angeles International Airport swept an administrative office but decided against searching passenger terminals.

The FBI said it was investigating telephoned bomb threats to Long Beach, John Wayne, Ontario International and Los Angeles International airports, the first two of which were made about 3 a.m. -- before the airports open for air travel. The third threat was called in to Ontario about 3:30 a.m. And two bomb threats were made at 11:45 a.m. and 11:52 a.m. to an LAX administration building.

The FBI was working with local law enforcement agencies to determine who made the bomb threats and whether they were linked.

The FBI confirmed that its Joint Terrorism Task Force was investigating the calls, but one source said the incidents were probably hoaxes unrelated to terrorism.

Eight flights were affected and a few delayed at Long Beach Airport, where police said officers and bomb-sniffing dogs combed the property.

After authorities concluded that the airport was free of bombs, ground crews were let into the facility about 7 a.m. They scrambled into place before about 200 passengers were allowed into the airport a half-hour later, Long Beach police Sgt. David Cannan said.

Authorities said each call was made by a male who issued what authorities termed a “non-specific threat,” meaning that no person or location was identified. The caller or callers made similar, though not identical, remarks, they said.

No evacuation or disruption occurred at any other airport where a threat was received.

But just as Long Beach opened, an unrelated incident at San Diego International Airport caused flight delays after a passenger terminal was closed for about two hours. Screeners detected what they thought was a suspicious object inside a traveler’s bag.

Six flights were delayed at the terminal before police determined that the object was a remote-controlled toy.

At LAX, officials received two threats. In the first, the caller told an employee at the city’s airport agency that there was a bomb in a building. In the second, he said that an explosive was in the building where the employee was, which was the agency’s administration building at the entrance to the lower level at LAX.

Airport police visited each office in that administrative building and asked occupants if they had noticed anything out of the ordinary or had seen any unusual packages or parcels. Officers didn’t find anything suspicious.

Officials from the city department that operates LAX declined to specify their exact criteria for determining whether to evacuate terminals or conduct additional searches in response to a bomb threat. Ultimately, those procedures must balance security concerns with maintaining normal operations at the airport, they said.

“We have more cameras looking at things, we have law enforcement personnel at every checkpoint, we have one of the largest airport police departments in the state,” said Paul Haney, an LAX spokesman. “So we have a lot of resources we can put to bear to clear these problems.”

The differing responses to the day’s airport threats, security experts said, could be related to the size of each airport and when the threats occurred.

Long Beach Airport doesn’t allow commercial flights until 7 a.m., so officials had several hours to check for bombs before the terminal filled with passengers.

Security experts said that airport officials have dealt with bomb scares and crank callers for years and that such threats have never been linked to an explosive device.

“I can’t think of an instance where someone has phoned one in and there really was a bomb,” said Jack Riley, a homeland security expert with the Rand Corp.

“There are very few bombers who give you the courtesy of calling and letting you know,” he said.

An exception, Riley said, is the Irish Republican Army, which has communicated very specific information on a bomb to the British government to demonstrate that they could carry out an attack. Their goal was to bring officials to the negotiating table.

“Unless there are some real specifics ... or if the person speaking to them on the phone can draw them out so they say ‘I had to go through this many layers of security,’ or ‘I left it at 3 o’clock and this is what was showing on the TV station in the terminal,’ they’re hard to take seriously,” Riley said.

Long Beach’s Cannan said three factors help decide how to treat any threat: its location, nature and timing.

“The airport didn’t open for four hours, so we figured we could take the time,” he said.

“Had the call come in at 3 p.m., not 3 a.m., we might have done things a bit differently,” he said.

Investigators were reluctant to describe much about the calls for fear of encouraging more of the same.

“We think the calls came from the same person, but I don’t really want to elaborate on specifics or give any other sick individuals ideas,” said Jim Amormino of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, which polices John Wayne Airport.

In Long Beach, there was some initial confusion when passengers arrived for morning flights only to find the airport shut down.

Passenger Robert Miller, 36, of West Palm Beach, Fla., was supposed to fly home Monday night after visiting his 10-year son in North Hollywood. But that flight was delayed because of Hurricane Wilma.

When he arrived at Long Beach Airport on Tuesday morning, police had blocked the road into the airport. By about 8:30 a.m., the scene had quieted and all was going smoothly, he said.

“It was a zoo, but I think they got all of the animals in the cage,” he joked.

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Times staff writers Tony Perry in San Diego, Lance Pugmire in San Bernardino County and Greg Krikorian in Los Angeles contributed to this report.