Growing lines of irritated travellers snaked through US airport terminals Thursday as people waited hours to reach security checkpoints, where they were ordered to dump all liquids and gels - water, suntan lotion, even toothpaste - following the discovery of a terror plot involving planes leaving Britain.
Guards armed with rifles stood at the security checkpoints in several airports. Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney said he would send the National Guard to help patrol Boston’s Logan Airport for the first time since the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, and New York Governor George Pataki was considering a similar move.
The plot targeted flights from Britain to the US, particularly to New York, Washington and California on United Airlines, American Airlines and Continental Airlines Inc, a counter-terrorism official said on Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.
US authorities raised the threat level to “red” for flights from Britain, the first time the highest threat of terrorist attack had been invoked since the system was created. All other flights were under an “orange” alert - one step below red.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the plot appeared to have been engineered by al-Qaeda, the terrorist group that hijacked two planes from Boston on Sept. 11 and flew them into the World Trade Centre towers in New York.
Lines were longer than usual at San Francisco International Airport, and red plastic bins were quickly filling up with bottles of wine, cups of coffee and water bottles now banned from carry-on luggage.
At Kennedy Airport in New York, Sonia Gomes De Mesquita, 40, waited nervously to board a British Airways flight home to London. Her family had urged her not to fly.
“You wake up and what are you going to do?” she said. “The flight is today.”
‘Tighter restriction will remain in place for at least 12 to 72 hours and possibly longer’
At Newark Airport in New Jersey, the security checkpoint line for Terminal B, home to most international flights, stretched the entire length of the terminal - roughly six football fields - and was barely moving.
The security lines at Newark’s Terminal C, where Continental bases its flights at the airport, was even worse. The crush of people brought to mind a chaotic rock concert.
“It’s complete disaster and chaos,” said Bill Federman, of Oklahoma City, who missed his Continental flight home because of the lines.
The new ban on all liquids and gels from carry-on luggage left people with little choice but throw away juice boxes, makeup and, for one passenger, even a bottle of tequila. Baby formula and medicines were exempt but had to be inspected.
Chicago aviation commissioner Nuria Fernandez said the tighter restriction will remain in place for at least 12 to 72 hours and possibly longer.
At Boston’s Logan Airport, Romney said additional screening stations were being set up at the airline gates and security was being tightened on the roads outside the airport. The exact number of guardsmen was still being determined, but “it will certainly be in the hundreds,” he said.
New York Governor George Pataki has offered state police and National Guard units to bolster security at John F Kennedy Airport and other airports, but no decision to dispatch them had been made, a Pataki spokesperson said.
Extra police and dog units were sent out overnight at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, where American Airlines is based, to patrol terminals and parking garages, airport spokesman Ken Capps said.
American cancelled three London-bound morning flights from Chicago, Boston and New York to accommodate delays at London’s Heathrow airport, spokesperson John Hotard said. To balance the cancellations, the airline also dropped three afternoon or evening flights from London to US cities, Hotard said.
The remaining 13 flights in each direction were expected to run from 1″ to 3″ hours late. The cancellations were due to scheduling delays and not because of direct threats to the flights, Hotard said.
Delta Air Lines spokesperson Anthony Black said operations would continue normally and there would be no flight cancellations. But Delta was expecting delays on flights coming from the United Kingdom because of heightened security there, Black said.
Homeland Security staff put up hastily printed signs at Dulles Airport outside Washington warning passengers in red capital letters: “No liquid or gels permitted beyond security.”