Security at Los Angeles International Airport was increased Wednesday night after authorities apprehended a diplomat on a Washington, D.C.,-to-Denver flight who was suspected of trying to light a small fire — or perhaps smoke.
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<\/br>The number of uniformed officers patrolling LAX terminals was increased and units were beefed up around the airport perimeter, Los Angeles Airport Police Chief George R. Centeno said in a statement.
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<\/br>He said airport police would be working with federal authorities as they continue to investigate the incident that occurred Wednesday night on United Airlines Flight 663.
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<\/br>The suspect, the third secretary vice counsel at the Qatar Embassy in Washington, was apprehended by federal air marshals who were riding undercover on the flight that took off from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, law enforcement sources told The Times.
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<\/br>The man told authorities that he went to the lavatory and tried to light a cigarette. He made a joke about lighting a shoe bomb, according to the sources, who asked not to be named because of the ongoing investigation.
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<\/br>The diplomat was subdued by the federal agents as F-16 fighters scrambled to escort the flight to Denver International Airport. The plane landed at 6:54 local time.
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<\/br>Authorities are investigating whether the man’s diplomatic status allowed him to bypass security, the sources said.
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<\/br>–Andrew Blankstein and Robert J. Lopez<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Security at Los Angeles International Airport was increased Wednesday night after authorities apprehended a diplomat on a Washington, D.C.,-to-Denver flight who was suspected of trying to light a small fire — or perhaps smoke.The number of uniformed officers patrolling LAX terminals was increased and units were beefed up around the airport perimeter, Los Angeles Airport […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4622,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-519977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4622"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519977\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}