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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Passengers on a Los Angeles-bound flight out of New York's John F.
Kennedy International Airport on Friday said police in combat gear stormed the plane and
apprehended as many as three people.
The Federal Aviation Administration shut down the three New York-area airports late on
Thursday due to "FBI activity," New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik said, and the
airports remained closed early on Friday.
Tensions in New York are running at fever pitch after hijackers commandeered two commercial
flights out of Boston on Tuesday and crashed the planes into the landmark World Trade Center
twin towers in New York's financial district.
Thousands are feared dead in the attack that leveled the skyscrapers to massive piles of rubble.
Hijackers crashed a third plane into the Pentagon, the U.S. military headquarters outside
Washington, and a fourth jet crashed in Pennsylvania.
Local authorities and a federal law enforcement official in Washington would not confirm U.S.
television network and local media reports that police had thwarted two more hijacking attempts
at Kennedy and LaGuardia airports. Some of those arrested had flight crew bags and
certificates from a Florida flight school linked to Tuesday's hijackers, the reports said.
Jim Hunter, a passenger on the Kennedy flight, told ABC about 20 police officers, many in
paramilitary SWAT gear, stormed an American Airlines jetliner on Thursday afternoon, subduing
one man and handcuffing two others.
He said passengers on American Airlines Flight 133 to Los Angeles had sat on the tarmac for
hours before police boarded.
"About 20 or more police officers, many in SWAT gear with large guns all unholstered"stormed
the plane and screamed to the passengers to "hit the floor," Hunter said.
"There was a commotion going on ... about four or five rows behind me where they were
subduing a passenger and he was definitely resisting and trying to fight off," Hunter said.
"Two other passengers that were right in front of me were ultimately asked to go with
authorities as well" and were handcuffed and taken off the plane as well, he added.
Jim Olson, another passenger, gave NBC a similar account.
"There were at least probably half a dozen to a dozen SWAT team, armed SWAT team gunmen
that stormed through the back of the plane," Olson said. "They had us put our heads in the crash
position" and dragged out one to three people, he said.
A federal law enforcement official who asked not to be identified confirmed the Port Authority
made one arrest at JFK.
"Our joint terrorism task force and the FBI are looking into the matter and there are three other
incidents at airports into which FBI and joint chairs and task force are conducting an
investigation."
ABC and local reports said some of those arrested were carrying knives similar to those used in
Tuesday's hijackings.
On Thursday, Kerik told reporters police had arrested one man at Kennedy Airport who was
carrying false identification, and had detained five or six others.
Kerik said some of those detained or arrested were Arabs. The man arrested carried false
identification and a pilot's license and attempted to clear security. It was not immediately clear
whether the pilot's license was also false. Kerik said he did not know whether the arrest of the man at Kennedy airport was connected to Tuesday's attacks. "We can't tell at this point," he said.