Britain canceled two British Airways flights between London and Washington on Thursday amid tightened air security over the holidays that also prompted U.S. officials to forbid a New Year’s Eve flight from Mexico City to Los Angeles.
In addition, officials questioned passengers for hours who had arrived at Dulles International Airport on a flight from London.
No arrests were made on any of the flights, but the extraordinary New Year’s measures, which included F-16 fighter jet escorts for some foreign carriers flying over U.S. airspace, underscored the concern of U.S. officials that terrorists planned to use international flights to attack American targets.
U.S. aviation and law enforcement officials said Thursday that intelligence has identified a variety of dates, flights and routes that pose an elevated risk. For at least three weeks, officials have been combing through names of passengers ticketed on some flights from Mexico, France and other countries bound for Los Angeles International Airport, Dulles International Airport and New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, according to one senior aviation official.
Under the high-risk threat alert imposed Dec. 21, the Department of Homeland Security and local police also maintained tight control over college football bowl games Wednesday and New Year’s festivities such as the Tournament of Roses parade. Although flight restrictions over Las Vegas and Manhattan were eased Thursday morning, they were still enforced in other places such as Washington.
U.S. counter-terrorism officials will watch some flights for the next several weeks, according to a senior aviation official.
“They will take appropriate action in the weeks ahead,” the official said. Air security overseas is “not at the level it should be, and [U.S.] officials are concerned about it.”
British Airways on Thursday canceled Flight 223 from London’s Heathrow Airport to Dulles for unspecified security reasons. The return Flight 222 also was canceled. Flight 223 on New Year’s Eve was detained at Dulles and its passengers questioned.
Air France Flight 68, a non-stop from Paris to Los Angeles, was canceled last week along with five other Air France departures on the same route after U.S. officials found that some passenger names matched those of suspected terrorists. AeroMexico Flight 490 from Mexico City to Los Angeles was canceled on New Year’s Eve for similar reasons, according to several U.S. officials.
“We received information about three weeks ago about some flights … through various sources with high credibility that lent specificity to the threat,” said one law enforcement official. The official said the names of several passengers booked on the AeroMexico flight were identical to ones on a terrorism database, but further scrutiny showed the passengers were not the suspects.
