LaGuardia shut down Saturday (July 30th)

Anyone know anything about the reasons behind LaGuardia being shut down on Saturday (July 30th, 2005)? My parents just flew in from New York on Saturday and said they were the last flight allowed out - minus most of their luggage (the luggage handling was also shut down, they were all issued luggage claim tickets while sitting in the plane).

Prior to boarding anyone that had purchased duty free was instructed to return to the duty free shop to pick up their items -- the lady working there said it was the first time she'd ever had that happen (passengers pick up their own duty free to take on their flight) in the entire time her shop has been open in LaGuardia. One of the staff at the gate said, "I could go out to get it for you, but they wouldn't let me back in." My dad said, "We thought that was odd but didn't think anything of it until we were sitting on the taxiway," and the captain announced that the airport was being closed for an emergency and most of the luggage was not on board but would be shipped to them (Air Canada).

I don't see anything about it in the news anywhere, including the NY Times, local CNN affiliates, etc. Wondered if anyone local knew anything about it.



[edit on 31-7-2005 by CatHerder]

Nothing on the local news here... i'll keep an eye on the paper tomorrow.


Derek

The only thing I could find was this from LaGuardia Airport

There will be an 18 hour extended weekend closure of Runway 13-31 on Saturday, July 30th, from 06:00hrs to 23:59hrs local hours for necessary maintenance.

They could have been trying to get as much out as they could before the closure I guess.

That doesn't really make a lot of sense to shut down operations due to one runway closure since they have two 7,000 ft runways. For the most part all navigational aids are similar on both the 4-22 and 13-31 runways. The only differences are found on approach. Takeoff requires nothing special.

If they had to temporarily suspend operations to reconfigure for the runway construction then I could understand that. But if the airport itself called it an emergency then that's very strange. CatHerder, do you know if the announcement specifically said it was an emergency?

The fact that there is another runway doesn't really mean anything. Aircraft takeoffs and landings are determined by wind direction among other things. Closing the entire airport for runway maintenance actually makes sense.

Yes they (flight attendants) said a "security breach" had locked down the airport, all flights are cancelled (besides the one my parents were on, which had already been loaded with passengers) and the airport was being evacuated.

I don't think it had anything to do with the runway maintenance, their flight left just after lunch after 4PM (thereabouts -- originally I'd posted 'around 12:15PM' -- but after having dinner tonight over at my parents place, and looking at their tickets to get the exact timeline it turns out their flight was at ~4:15PM), and the one runway shutdown was from 6AM to midnight.

It is just curious that it didn't make any mention in local NY news. All I can find is this: Suspicious Package Shuts Down Port Authority -- But it clearly isn't related to LaGuardia being shut down due to a security breach.

[edit on 1-8-2005 by CatHerder]

Well... if the authorities thought the lowly underlings should know about it, we'd know. Just trust that everything is ok.

It's aallll part of the show. Just relax...

Oh! Look over there! Bush nominated Bolten! Lookie there!

Pretty colors....