British Official Cites 'Good Grounds' for Flight Cancellations

WASHINGTON, Jan. 4 — A senior British official defended today the recent cancellations of three commercial flights to Washington and Riyadh, saying that specific intelligence had provided "good grounds" for the decisions.

Transport Minister Alistair Darling made the comment a day after a British Airways flight from London to Washington, twice canceled in preceding days, had landed safely at Dulles International Airport.

The cancellations, and a United States demand that some international flights to the United States carry armed marshals, have raised tensions with British, French and some other foreign officials amid uncertainty over the reliability of United States information on terrorist planning. No arrests are known to have resulted from the recent steps.

But Mr. Darling said that British security services had "specific information" that tended to support United States intelligence on a possible risk to the canceled flights.

While offering no details, he said, "We would not have taken the decision to cancel those two flights to Washington and the flight to the Middle East if there had not been good grounds for doing so."

Mr. Darling told BBC television that flights would be canceled only when "the grounds are very clear in our minds and we are justified" in doing so.

In the past week, Aeromexico flights from Mexico City to Los Angeles and Air France flights from Paris to Los Angeles have also been canceled.

The recent cancellations and other reinforced security measures came amid heightened concerns that terrorists might try to organize a dramatic new attack on United States targets like the hijacked-airliner strikes of Sept. 11, 2001, that killed nearly 3,000 people.

On Saturday, amid extremely tight security — police with sniffer dogs had mingled among boarding passengers, every one of whom was questioned and requestioned — British Airways Flight 223 from London Heathrow Airport reached Dulles three hours behind schedule. Flights in both directions today faced delays.

Mr. Darling said the recent cancellations represented a "comparatively rare" event and that "the vast majority of people will be able to fly in the normal way."

But a day earlier he cautioned that threats to commercial aviation were "likely to endure for many years," and that the traveling public should be prepared to cope with occasional delays.

British officials have denied reports that the recent cancellations were based partly on objections by British pilots to flying with armed guards aboard, as demanded by United States officials. The British Airline Pilots Association does oppose the use of armed guards on airplanes, but said it would not block the practice.

British officials, in consultation with Saudi authorities, were still considering whether to reinstate on Monday a scheduled flight from London Heathrow to Riyadh. Flights scheduled for Wednesday and Saturday were canceled, as was a return from Riyadh today.

The British Foreign Office, which warned late last month that new terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia could be "in the final stages of preparation," has cautioned since May against all nonessential travel to the kingdom.

British newspapers have quoted intelligence sources as saying that Al Qaeda members in Britain were planning either to detonate an explosive device on an aircraft or to hijack several jets and crash them, in a coordinated attack, into major United States targets.

BBC Radio similarly reported that someone named on a United States list of terror suspects "was trying to get on BA Flight 223 to Washington when it was canceled on Thursday."

United States and British officials have offered no confirmation of these reports.

Mr. Darling was asked to comment on the British press speculation, including a Sunday Telegraph report that cited an unidentified senior civil servant as saying that reinforced cockpit doors and the possible presence of armed air guards would make hijackings less likely but increase the possibility of attempted bombings.

The minister declined to comment, saying that "in doing so you would be able to tell the very people we are concerned about what it is the government does or doesn't know."

The United States government increased its domestic terror alert from "elevated" to "high" on Dec. 21. Intelligence officials said that intercepts of increased electronic chatter from suspected terrorists had provided cause for concern.

In addition to heightened security at airports, military jets at United States bases are on high alert, and reportedly at least two Air France flights were given air escorts into Los Angeles last week.

Authorities grounded three of the French airline's Paris-to-Los Angeles flights on Dec. 24 and 25, and an Aeromexico flight from Mexico City to Los Angeles on the same days.

Some foreign officials in say france and mexico may be upset that we have had to cancel some flights from their countries to America do to security concerns on our part.
If they don't like it, tell them to keep all their f-ing
planes out of our skies or they will be shot down.

Enough games with these a-holes.

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Some foreign officials in say france and mexico may be upset

You left out Britain. France is complying with the sky marshall thing quite happily. British pilots are the ones raising the biggest stink.

evan the britt cops are carrying burp guns of some kind or another now.

LOL, who told you that whopper? They have special units that can use firearms but the average policeman still does not carry a weapon apart from his billy stick. I know this- I live in Edinburgh.

The British pilots are the ones not wanting to comply with the sky marshall thing. They are saying that they will not fly with an armed marshall on board. They say it is unsafe. France has said it doesn't mind putting armed marshalls on board planes. In this sense, the French are more cooperative than the Brits. The British pilots are actually calling for an emergency world wide meeting of pilots union to put a stop to this sky marshall thing. Seriously.

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