Air France resumed flights between Paris and Los Angeles on Friday as U.S. counterterrorism officials maintained tight security measures here and elsewhere, warning that the threat remains of an Al Qaeda attack involving aircraft somewhere in the United States.
As the FBI dispatched more agents to France to investigate a suspected terror plot that may have been aborted, authorities at Los Angeles International Airport maintained the tightest security since Sept. 11, 2001, scouring several flights from France and Mexico for passengers or cargo that might suggest terrorism.
Just after 6:15 p.m. Friday, a contingent of federal agents and local authorities met Air France Flight 68 from Paris at a remote terminal at LAX. The flight, two hours late because of a security check at Charles De Gaulle Airport, was the first Air France jetliner from Paris in two days and had the flight number that initially had been cited by intelligence officials as a possible terrorist target.
Sandra Bydalek, 47, one of the first passengers from the plane to clear customs, said the day had begun with two body pat-downs at De Gaulle Airport, searches of her shoes, luggage and carry-ons and a wait of several hours. When Flight 68 touched down in Los Angeles, Bydalek said, applause broke out. Passengers then endured more searches -- screening by a metal detector, luggage inspections, and another pat-down, although not as thorough as the body search in Paris, she said.
It was the first of three flights Friday that authorities said would undergo additional security screening..
On Christmas evening, dozens of FBI agents, Los Angeles police and other law enforcement personnel also converged on Air Tahiti Nui Flight 21 from Paris, authorities said. After a three-hour security delay at De Gaulle Airport, officials said, that jetliner was held another five hours at LAX as a tactical weapons team and bomb technicians combed the aircraft, and counterterrorism investigators interviewed the flight's 200 passengers and crew members in a remote terminal.
Hours later, the FBI, LAPD and other law enforcement officers also descended upon Aeromexico Flight 490, which arrived late Christmas Day from Mexico City. The aircraft and passengers on that flight, which originated in the Yucatan capital of Merida, also were thoroughly examined.
Earlier in the week, counterterrorism officials told The Times that authorities were paying special attention to Los Angeles-bound flights by Air France, Aeromexico and Air Tahiti Nui for fear that they could be exploited by Al Qaeda. It was unclear how that information had been developed, though officials said it had been part of a recent intelligence analysis. The analysis concluded that four cities could figure into the terrorism plans of extremists: Los Angeles; Las Vegas; Valdez, Alaska; and Rappahannock, Va. (One high-ranking U.S. intelligence official speculated that, because of its relative obscurity, the Virginia location could actually have been a potential meeting place, rather than a target of Islamic militants.)
Officials in those areas launched enhanced security measures days before Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge announced Sunday that the nation would move to an orange alert, the second-highest level of warning about potential attacks.
Since the increase in the alert level, U.S. officials have voiced concern that extremists might use aircraft to launch another attack on the country.
In Mexico, a spokesman for President Vicente Fox said Friday that although the U.S. had asked for increased cooperation on security at airports, seaports and the border, the government had received no intelligence from the U.S. about a specific threat.
The reason for the additional measures "is that Mexico shares a border with the United States, and Mexico doesn't want to become a trampoline for attacks against the United States or any other country," said the spokesman, Agustine Gutierrez Canet.
On Christmas Eve, French officials halted six Air France flights scheduled to fly into LAX over a period of two days. The action was taken after intelligence reports picked up "chatter" that indicated several Air France flights, including the daily Flight 68, might be targeted for hijacking by Islamic extremists. The FBI subsequently found about a dozen names of individuals on two Air France passenger lists for Christmas Eve, including that for Flight 68, that were similar to the names of people associated with Al Qaeda and the Taliban, according to U.S. counterterrorism sources.
Although French investigators interviewed and released an unknown number of passengers with tickets for the scheduled Air France flights Wednesday, they said no one had been arrested and no signs of a terrorist threat had been uncovered.
