BA flight delayed over terror fears arrives in US

THE twice-cancelled British Airways Flight 223 landed safely outside Washington yesterday morning, as British officials warned more flights may be called off to prevent another September 11-style attack.

The British Airways flight from London, which had been delayed for three hours on Saturday due to extra security procedures, landed without incident at Washington’s Dulles International Airport around 4.15am Irish time.

“It landed as normal,” Tom Sullivan, spokesman for Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, said of Flight 223, which had been cancelled Thursday and Friday due to intelligence information. “It’s good ... that those folks have been able to get to the Washington area at last.”

Arriving passengers said security was extremely tight at London’s Heathrow airport before their departure, but the flight itself aboard the Boeing 747 jumbo jet was uneventful.

“I think it was ... safer in the world today because they took all the security measures,” passenger Adriana Eftimie told a local TV station upon her arrival at Dulles airport.

The concerns over the flight came as the US was on heightened alert because of intelligence that raises fears of a possible attack that could be bigger than the September 11 attacks that killed about 3,000 people.

Flights from Mexico and France to the US were also cancelled over the holiday period due to the fears.

On Saturday, BA spokesman John Lampl said London-bound Flight 222 would depart Washington about two hours late at around 11.30pm EST, with some 275 passengers booked on the flight.

Flight 224, cancelled Saturday for “operational reasons,” was due to depart Washington for London as scheduled early on Sunday, Lampl said. He said Flight 223 carried 232 passengers and a crew of 17.

“We’re pretty much back to normal,” Lampl said, noting the airline had replaced some smaller planes with 747s to carry more passengers and compensate for the security delays.

In London, Transport Secretary Alistair Darling said British security services had information supporting US intelligence on a risk to the flights.

He said a specific threat led to the grounding of the BA flights and more cancellations might be needed.

Asked whether British authorities had information about specific threats, Darling said: “Yes we do. And the reason that different flights are either grounded, or there is increased security, varies from time to time.”

“The threat that we now face is likely to endure for many years,” he said in a BBC interview.