Departures Delayed At LAX After Computer Failure

Sunday, August 12th 2007, 8:43 pm

By: News On 6

LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Airlines struggled to clean and refuel planes where passengers had been trapped for hours because of a computer crash, leading to additional delays Sunday at Los Angeles International Airport.

At least four outbound international flights were delayed for an hour or more, according the airport's Web site, as carriers dealt with the fallout from a computer crash Saturday that stranded more than 20,000 inbound travelers in the terminal and on planes.

One Zurich-bound Swiss International Air Lines plane was expected to depart at around noon Sunday, some 14 hours after its scheduled departure time, airline spokeswoman Andrea Kreuzer said.

``We were not able to prepare the aircraft,'' Kreuzer said.

Thousands of passengers were kept on planes or in airport terminals after customs department computers containing travelers' identities and law enforcement records went down, preventing authorities from screening people arriving in the U.S.

``We just can't take a risk knowing that one bad guy can harm our country significantly,'' said U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Mike Fleming.

On Sunday, international flights were arriving on time and travelers coming to the U.S. were making it smoothy through the airport's checkpoints, Fleming said.

``So far, it's normal operations,'' Fleming said.

Passengers were kept on planes starting at 2:30 p.m. Saturday after the terminals that normally accept international passengers became full because the previous arrivals couldn't be processed.

The hardware malfunction was repaired by 11:45 p.m., Fleming said. But it took officials until around 4 a.m. Sunday to finish processing the backlog of incoming passengers.

``This is the Third World,'' said Irish tourist Caroline O'Rourke, who spent six hours on the tarmac after her 12-hour flight. ``This is just disgraceful.''

Three people were transported to local hospitals after they fell ill while waiting in the terminals, the Los Angeles Fire Department reported.

Airport officials said the stranded planes were connected to ground power and passengers had access to food, water and bathrooms during the hours it took to repair the computer system.

``We've had outages in the past, but they haven't taken nearly as long to resolve,'' Fleming said. ``This was unprecedented in terms of impact.''