Los Angeles Police Department

Los Angeles International Airport, the original destination of three of the aircraft hijacked in the morning’s terrorist attacks, is evacuated except for essential personnel. [Associated Press, 9/11/2001; CNN, 9/12/2001] Officials closed the airport at 9:25 a.m., but now police start evacuating it. For hours, heavily armed agents and bomb-sniffing dogs patrol the terminals. Dozens of Los Angeles Police Department officers and FBI agents search through the airport. A few areas are scrutinized with particular care, such as around a suspicious parcel in Terminal 4, where American Airlines flights usually arrive and take off. However, no bombs are found. [Los Angeles Times, 9/12/2001] While security is heightened at many US airports, the security precautions are particularly high at the Los Angeles and San Francisco airports (see 12:15 p.m. September 11, 2001), since these were the intended destinations of the four hijacked aircraft. [Associated Press, 9/11/2001; Los Angeles Times, 9/12/2001]