| ABC News | - |
Thousands
of fliers across the U.S. were delayed Friday after a morning shooting
at Los Angeles International Airport closed parts of the airport.
Thousands of Fliers Delayed After LAX Shooting
Thousands of fliers across the U.S. were delayed Friday after a morning
shooting at Los Angeles International Airport closed parts of the
airport. The prolonged shutdown at the nation's third largest airport
was particularly troublesome for those hoping to head to the East Coast
or across the Pacific Ocean.
Flights bound for Los Angeles that had not yet taken off were held at
their gates for hours by the Federal Aviation Administration. The
so-called ground stop was in effect until around 4 p.m. PDT. Some
flights already in the air were allowed to land at LAX, while others
diverted to nearby airports.
Throughout the day, an estimated 1,550 scheduled arriving and departing
flights with around 167,000 passengers were affected, the airport said
late Friday night. That included 86 arriving flights that were diverted
to other airports. The ripple effect was felt across the country.
Some passengers who landed at LAX after the shooting spent at least two
hours sitting on planes parked in a remote corner of the airport.
Even though the airport never fully closed, travelers trying to fly out
were unable to reach it because of massive road closures.
Gina Marie Lindsey, executive director of Los Angeles World Airports,
which operates the Los Angeles airport, said it will take "quite a deal
of time" to get operations back to normal. She said it will be a
"carefully orchestrated logistical ballet."
LAX's Terminal 3, where the shooting occurred, remained closed Friday evening as the forensics investigation continued.
A man carrying a note that said he wanted to "kill TSA" pulled a
semi-automatic rifle from a bag around 9:20 a.m. local time and shot his
way past a security checkpoint. One Transportation Security
Administration officer was killed and at least three other were wounded,
authorities said.
One security expert doubted much could be done to prevent similar incidents.
"I am not sure what can be done other than effectively banning most
types of guns as in the U.K. where there are minimal shootings," said
Kenneth J. Button, a public policy professor and director of the Center
for Transportation, Policy, Operations and Logistics at George Mason
University.
"This could just as well happened on a street in New York or at a
shopping mall," Button said in an email in which he also alluded to last
year's mass shootings in a Colorado movie theater and at a Connecticut
elementary school. He added that "airports are possibly one of the
safest places given the security there."
Los Angles is a major gateway for flights to Asia, Australia and New
Zealand. Domestically, the largest cities served are San Francisco, Las
Vegas, New York, San Jose, Calif., San Diego and Phoenix.
However, it is not a major connection point such as Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas and Minneapolis.
Most airlines issued waivers for people traveling through Los Angeles, allowing them to change flights without paying a fee.
JetBlue diverted flights from Boston, New York and Fort Lauderdale,
Fla., to nearby Long Beach airport. Southwest Airlines diverted at least
one flight — a trip from Chicago that landed in Denver.
Officials at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix said seven
flights to Los Angeles were canceled, including five on Southwest. Seven
flights from Sky Harbor to LAX were delayed and 10 flights headed to
Los Angeles from elsewhere were diverted to Sky Harbor.
———
Scott Mayerowitz can be reached at http://twitter.com/GlobeTrotScott .
No comments:
Post a Comment