LA airport evacuated again due to suspicious item; plane checked after threat
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Posted 1:44PM on Thursday, March 7, 2002
LOS ANGELES - A suspicious item detected by a screening machine Thursday morning forced another evacuation at Los Angeles International Airport, the latest in a series of shutdowns. <br>
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The evacuation affected only the ticket counter area in one terminal and was lifted after less than 20 minutes. <br>
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On Monday, travel at the nation's fourth busiest airport was disrupted for three hours when screeners spotted a replica hand grenade in luggage. Last Thursday, an unplugged metal detector triggered a five-terminal evacuation that led to 400 flight delays and 10,000 passengers being rescreened. <br>
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The latest evacuation came after a screener detected a suspicious item at a ticket counter, airport spokeswoman Gaby Pacheco said. <br>
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Explosives experts determined there were no explosives, and no one was arrested, Campos said. <br>
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An hour earlier, a bomb squad and FBI agents had responded to a threat aboard a Varig Brazil airliner that had just landed in another part of the airport, Pacheco said. The airliner was on a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Los Angeles. The nature of the threat was not disclosed. <br>
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The plane was being examined at a remote area of the airfield, she said. <br>
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