• Print
• E-mail
• Add to My Trips

Thousands of international passengers stranded for hours on planes and in packed holding areas at Los Angeles International Airport on Saturday have now cleared customs. But officials have not explained what caused a computer malfunction that left them unable to process the travelers' entry into the country.

Airport on Saturday, waiting on airplanes and in packed customs halls while a malfunctioning computer system prevented U.S. officials from processing the travelers' entry into the country.

Editor's note: Have you been affected by delays at LAX recently? Share your story on our Travel Message Boards.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection system went down around 2 p.m., forcing some planes to sit on the tarmac for so long that workers had to refuel them to keep their power units and air conditioning running. Maintenance workers ran trucks around the airport hooking up tubes to service lavatories.

Just after midnight Saturday, Tom Winfrey, a spokesman for Los Angeles World Airports, said the computer system was up and running. Processing passengers through customs took several hours after that.

At 3:50 a.m., customs cleared the last seven people -- one passenger in a wheelchair and six crew members -- all from the last flight to arrive early today during the backlog: Mexicana Airlines Flight 922 from Guadalajara, Mexico.

Passengers scheduled to depart from LAX today were urged to check with their airlines before going to the airport, but Winfrey said operations were largely back to normal. He said "a handful of flights" were likely to depart late today because of late arrivals Saturday but that no flight cancellations were expected.

Airport and customs officials offered conflicting numbers of how many people were delayed by the computer malfunction. Winfrey said about 11,000 people were directly affected; customs officials put the number at 20,000. Six travelers were ultimately detained because of passport or agriculture questions.

"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," said Peter Gordon, acting port director for customs.

The delays also jammed airport parking lots. As of 3 a.m., some lots were still completely gridlocked. The congestion was so bad that at 3:30 a.m., customs spokesman Michael D. Fleming said he had opted to stay at the airport rather than try to head home to Irvine.

The computer system maintains a list of people who should be subject to secondary searches upon entering the country, Fleming explained. "The vast majority of people" do not pose a security threat, "but it only takes one," he said. "Obviously a lot of innocent folks have been detained, and it is regrettable."

The malfunction affected only LAX, and customs officials said early in the evening that they were willing to divert flights to LA/Ontario International Airport, San Diego International Airport/Lindbergh Field or McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas. In the end, Fleming said, two flights were rerouted: An Alaska Airlines flight landed in San Diego and a Spirit Airlines flight from Mexico landed at Ontario.

The delays rivaled the worst incidents of last winter, when severe weather left thousands of passengers languishing for up to nine hours on American Airlines and JetBlue planes. Sals Farsi, 39, his wife and three children spent seven hours waiting to get off a flight from Cabo San Lucas late Saturday night. They said they were given formula for their 6-month-old after the captain radioed the terminal for it. "This was crazy," he said.

When passengers emerged from planes tired and bleary eyed, they found most restaurants in the Bradley terminal closed or running low on food. The few restaurants still open had long lines of 30 to 40 people waiting.

Paul Gysels, 60, of San Francisco, was loading up on beef jerky and chocolate bars at a newsstand. He had just spent five hours on the tarmac after a flight from La Paz.