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 News from Around the Americas | August 2007 
Computer Crash Leaves 20,000 High and Dry at LA Airport
 Amanda Beck & Jacqui Goddard - Scotsman.com
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 |  | They came over the microphone and they said that there'd be a little bit of a delay. That little bit of a delay turned into four hours.
- Jeremy Bright |  | |
More than 20,000 passengers were kept waiting for hours on their planes and in terminals at Los Angeles airport after a computer failure prevented customs officials from screening arrivals.
The delays started at about 2pm on Saturday and the backlog of passengers was not cleared until the early hours of yesterday.
Travellers, including some who had already spent nearly a day in the air, told how they were forced to wait up to six hours on the tarmac when the four terminals became full. Some 60 planes were unable to disembark their passengers on arrival.
Peter Gordon, acting port director for US customs, said: "This is probably one of the worst days we've had. I've been with the agency for 30 years and I've never seen the system go down and stay down for as long as it did."
Caroline O'Rourke, an Irish tourist, spent 12 hours in the air and six hours grounded on a jet at the airport before she and her fellow passengers were allowed off to be processed through immigration. "This is third-world. This is just disgraceful," she said, sitting on her suitcase outside the terminal.
Jeremy Bright, an American, said: "They came over the microphone and they said that there'd be a little bit of a delay. That little bit of a delay turned into four hours. They had two laptops that were running. So everybody - I think there were 400 people - had to go through two laptops."
Anila Punjabi, from Fresno, California, was kept waiting for five hours at the airport at the end of a gruelling 21-hour flight from Madras, India, but remained upbeat. "What can we do but wait? It really wasn't that bad. They brought us some more food on the plane," she said.
One angry member of the public, identified only as Frank, told the Los Angeles Times: "Unbelievable! How can a government system hijack passengers by letting them stay in an airplane on the ground for seven or more hours, having to wait another four hours for baggage?
"Will someone be responsible for this mess or will it be just another day? Nothing to be a proud American about."
Gaynelle Jones, 57, who landed after a 13-hour flight from Hong Kong at about 2:15pm on Saturday and was still sitting on her plane five hours later, said she had missed her connecting flight to Houston.
"This is just unbearable. We've already been on a plane for several hours, and they have no timeframe for when we'll be able to get off," she said on her mobile phone, while still confined to the plane.
Airport officials said the stranded planes had been connected to ground power and passengers had access to food, water and toilets.
But Chris Cognac, 39, who was returning with family and friends - including ten children - from a week in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, said: "People are getting a little stir-crazy, feeling claustrophobic."
Passengers on his plane were already standing in the aisles, holding their carry-on luggage and ready to disembark when the flight crew asked them to return to their seats, he said.
"Everybody's pretty angry with customs at the moment, because they're not informing anyone of anything," he said. "It's becoming a logistical issue with diapers [nappies]," he said.
A major change in the system that contains the names of arriving passengers and law-enforcement data about them - including arrest warrants - had failed and had to be replaced, Mike Fleming, a US Customs and Border Protection spokesman, said. "That system allows our officers to make decisions on who we can allow to enter the United States," he said. "You just don't know by looking at them." |
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