San Francisco Airport

Get ready for a rocky week at San Francisco International Airport if you're flying abroad. But the gain will be worth the pain, officials say. Starting Tuesday, incoming and outbound foreign flights will begin shifting to the airport's giant new international terminal, with all the moves expected to be complete by next Sunday. "It's going to be a challenge," Mike McCarron, assistant deputy airport director, said last week. "We have a ton of signs we're putting up and changing daily."

In documents filed with federal accident investigators, Asiana Airlines stated Monday that flawed automatic throttles and the pilots themselves failed to maintain enough speed and altitude to safely land at San Francisco International Airport in July. Asiana's assertion about the throttles was immediately countered by Boeing Co., which lodged its own report with investigators, saying that the pilots were solely to blame and Boeing 777's automated throttle system was working properly.

San Francisco International Airport and its biggest tenant, United Airlines, have reached a new payment and lease plan that would allow the airline, which is operating under Bankruptcy Court protection, to stay at SFO until at least 2011. The plan, if approved by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge, would extend United's leases over its large maintenance center, aircraft hangar, air cargo facility and terminal.

Five airline pilots reported that their planes were struck by lightning as rain fell in the Bay Area, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration said Monday night. The strikes were reported around San Francisco International Airport during a roughly half-hour period that began at 12:15 p.m. Monday, said Ian Gregor, FAA spokesman in Los Angeles. None of the pilots reported damage or requested special assistance, he said. The planes were from Alaska, Horizon, United and United Arab Emirates airlines, the agency said.

Times are so bad at Lori's Diner in San Francisco International Airport that the restaurant is offering discounts to airport employees just to bring in some business. CalStar Retail Inc. has not paid the rent for three of its six stores in the sprawling complex and is being sued by the airport. San Francisco Golf fell behind in its rent payments. And the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art store is pushing for a rent decrease.

A man with suspicious residue on his shoes set off a security alert that shut down part of San Francisco International Airport on Wednesday morning, forcing the evacuation of thousands of passengers and the diversion of two jetliners. But the havoc created by the incident did not affect the traveler with the suspect loafers, who walked off with his shoes before he could be questioned by authorities.

A devastating one-two punch of jittery post-Sept. 11 air travelers and the Bay Area's economic tailspin has prompted officials to roll back their ambitious expansion plans at San Francisco International, the nation's sixth-busiest airport. Airport commissioners voted recently to trim operating costs by 23%, approving a $570-million budget they say will translate into a host of belt-tightening measures--including postponement of the construction of a new hotel and renovating an aging terminal.

A long-awaited train link between San Francisco and its airport is scheduled to open June 22, with rides to downtown costing less than $5 each way. The $1.5-billion project, in the works for decades and under construction since 1998, will give visitors an alternative to shuttles, which charge about $14 and up each way to downtown, and taxis, which typically run about $40 and up with tip, depending on traffic, for the same trip.

A Salvadoran man was arraigned Tuesday after a $1-million scanning device being tried out at San Francisco International Airport found guns and ammunition hidden in his boombox, authorities said. Miguel Gallegos, 40, was arrested by airport police after his luggage passed through a thermal neutron analysis unit, airport spokesman Ron Wilson said. The unit detects nitrogen emissions from explosives when luggage is passed through a cloud of neutrons, Wilson said.

Add to the list of electrifying problems the one of metallic party balloons filled with helium that drift into power lines, especially in Santa Monica, and cause power outages. They're not as dangerous a New Year's diversion as celebrating with your gun, maybe, but Southern California Edison blames those balloons for 11 outages over the New Year weekend. They ended up cutting off power to 13,700 customers for up to two hours. Most of the weekend outages were in Santa Monica.

Humphry Slocombe has created three funky new ice cream flavors for Virgin America fliers, but only one will make the cut for first-class service. Passengers and fans have until Friday to tweet their favorite -- #ButterByMoodlight (buttery with a blueberry glaze), #RedHotBanana (real Red Hot candies mashed into it) or #CoconutBlondAmbition (vanilla marshmallow fluff meets lemon sorbet). (If you don't recognize this hipster ice cream maker, it's the one that uses Bourbon and cornflakes in its Secret Breakfast flavor.)

Merrill Newman, the 85-year-old war veteran held prisoner in North Korea for the last six weeks, arrived back in California on Saturday, a day after being freed, to the relief of his family. [Updated at 9:10 a.m. PDT Dec. 7: Newman, of Palo Alto, arrived at San Francisco Airport mid-morning on a United Airlines flight.] Newman's son, standing outside his home in Pasadena late Friday, thanked those who helped with and prayed for his father's release . "This is a great moment for us as a family, and it will be even better when we have a chance to be back together in a few hours," Jeffrey Newman said.

The Bay Bridge that connects San Francisco and East Bay cities will be closed during Labor Day as the bridge gets ready for its official post-retrofit ribbon-cutting after the holiday. The bridge will be closed from 8 p.m. Aug. 28 until 5 a.m. Sept. 3 so workers can take the old east span out of service and ready the new part of the bridge. About 300,000 drivers daily cross the bridge that connects San Francisco to Oakland, Berkeley and other cities. So what's the best way to get around?

SAN FRANCISCO -- A United Airlines customer service agent and his wife have been charged with one felony count of grand theft and two felony counts of commercial burglary for allegedly stealing luggage at San Francisco International Airport in the disarray following the crash of Asiana Airlines Flight 214, prosecutors said Monday. Sean Sharif Crudup, 44, and Raychas Elizabeth Thomas, 32, both of Richmond, Calif., are out on bail. Crudup has pleaded not guilty to the charges. Thomas is scheduled to be arraigned Aug. 26 and has yet to file a plea.

Confirmation that one of the victims of the Asiana Airlines crash died after being run over by a rescue vehicle opened a new front in the investigation of the air disaster. San Mateo County Coroner Robert J. Foucrault said Friday that the victim, a 16-year-old Chinese girl, was alive on the tarmac when she was struck by the vehicle, suffering crushing injuries and internal hemorrhaging - "multiple blunt injuries that are consistent with being run over by a motor vehicle. " "She was alive when she received the injuries," he said.

Asiana Airlines said Wednesday it was scrapping plans to sue a Bay Area TV station for airing bogus pilot names, as the company itself faced mounting legal claims with two passengers filing a federal lawsuit faulting Asiana Flight 214's crew for the plane's crash-landing earlier this month. The airline said this week that it had hired counsel and intended to sue KTVU for broadcasting phony, racially charged names for the flight's four pilots, calling them derogatory. But the company said Wednesday that it had decided against legal action, based on its "determination to keep all of its resources dedicated to caring for the passengers and family members of Asiana flight 214 and supporting the investigation into the cause of the accident.

Sylmar-based construction giant Tutor-Saliba engaged in a complex pattern of fraud and inflated its billing during work on the San Francisco International Airport expansion, completed two years ago, a civil lawsuit alleges. The suit, filed Tuesday by the San Francisco city attorney's office, comes a little more than one year after Tutor-Saliba was found guilty of fraud for its 1990s construction work in Los Angeles on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Red Line subway.

A couple's romantic weekend getaway ended in death when a van hit and killed a Redondo Beach woman as she and her companion darted across the street in heavy rains. Kathleen Miller, 46, was crossing a downtown San Francisco street Friday night when she was struck by an airport shuttle van and thrown 122 feet, police said. Her companion, Ben Hobbs, remained in critical condition Sunday with head injuries.

A fire broke out overnight in the wreckage of the Asiana Airlines flight that crashed at San Francisco Airport, officials said Friday. KGO-TV in San Francisco reported the fire occurred as crews were working to remove pieces of the wreckage from the runway. The fire was caused by friction created when crews were cutting the fuselage to remove it, the station reported. Firefighters extinguished the blaze. Investigators are finishing their on-scene work at Runway 28L but will continue to analyze pieces of the plane at the NTSB's labs in Washington, D.C. A report that will officially determine the cause of the crash is expected in about a year.

SAN FRANCISCO -- A martial arts academy owner and his family have described a long wait for medical help as they comforted four victims of Saturday's Asiana Airlines crash who were ejected from the rear of the craft after the tail sheared off. In an interview with NBC Bay Area, Elliott Stone, who runs Elite Martial Arts Academy in Scotts Valley near Santa Cruz said he was returning with his fiancee, brother and parents from a martial arts competition...