Bomb Threat Cuts Flight Short; Four Hurt Evacuating Jumbo Jet

A fake bomb threat forced a London-bound British Airways jumbo jet to turn back and make an emergency landing at Los Angeles International Airport, resulting in injuries to four of the 390 people aboard when they slid down evacuation chutes, an airline spokesman said Friday.

Sixty minutes after the Los Angeles incident, a United Airlines jet carrying 14 passengers and a crew of seven made an emergency landing on an airstrip at Oildale in Kern County. There were no injuries.

Explosive-sniffing dogs spent three hours searching for the bomb supposedly planted on the Boeing 747 but found no trace of any such device, Los Angeles police bomb squad officer Herbert Williams said.

Christopher Batchelor, 44, of Yorkshire, England, suffered a fractured heel; Gladys Words, 74, Lakewood, a cut forehead and a bruised knee; Christina McGill, 75, Glasgow, Scotland, a knee injury, and Peter Rentesch, 31, Channel Islands, a back strain and a cut leg, Centinela Hospital spokesman Steve Rutledge said. All were released after treatment at the hospital’s airport emergency center, he said.

The four were injured while sliding down the evacuation chutes after the plane rolled to a stop at a remote spot near the end of a north runway, British Airways spokesman John Lampl said.

“Flight 282, which was en route from Los Angeles to London, had departed LAX at 8:32 p.m. (Thursday), and about 10 minutes later, an unknown male called the British Airways office at Heathrow Airport (near London) and said, ‘There is a time bomb aboard the flight, please help them,’ ” Lampl said.

The spokesman said the message was relayed to the jet, which was then 30 miles southwest of Las Vegas. The captain dumped excess fuel over the desert, turned back toward Los Angeles and landed without incident at 9:32 p.m.

The 373 passengers, including six infants, and 17 crew members evacuated the plane within two minutes. Forty Los Angeles Fire Department firefighters stood by as the jet rolled to a stop.

Lampl said passengers were put up overnight at local hotels and most elected to fly out of Los Angeles on another British Airways 747 Friday afternoon.

The United Airlines Boeing 727, en route from San Francisco to Bakersfield, had a hydraulic failure, which made the wing flaps inoperable and the captain chose to make an emergency landing at the 6,700-foot Oildale strip at 10:30 p.m., according to United spokesman Matt Gonring.