LA airport evacuated again due to suspicious item

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- An arriving Brazilian jetliner was taken to a remote area of the Los Angeles airport Thursday where passengers and crew were evacuated and a bomb-sniffing dog was brought onboard.

FBI spokeswoman Cheryl Mimura said Varig Airlines received a telephoned threat about Flight 8836 about the time it was landing. She refused to release details, as did officials at the airport.

The dog checked the cabin of the Varig MD-11, and passenger baggage was removed from the plane for examination. It wasn't immediately known how many people were on the flight.

It was one of two security emergencies at the world's third-busiest airport Thursday, and the fourth in eight days.

Just over an hour after the flight arrived from Rio de Janiero, the airport's Terminal 3's ticketing area was evacuated when security screeners detected a suspicious object in a piece of checked baggage.

It turned out to be a food processor and the terminal was reopened within 20 minutes.

The mixer was "about the size of a hand grenade so the bomb squad checked it out," Los Angeles police spokesman Guillermo Campos said.

Alaska, American Eagle, Frontier and Horizon operate out of Terminal 3. No flights were canceled.

On Monday, travel at LAX was disrupted for three hours when screeners spotted a fake hand grenade in a suitcase. Police said the item had the potential of being turned into an explosive, but the passenger was not arrested.

On Feb. 28, an unplugged metal detector triggered the evacuation of four terminals, delaying 400 flights and creating a backup of about 10,000 passengers.