Washington — Six U.S.-bound flights from Britain and France were cancelled Saturday because of security concerns.
The U.S. government said it had indications of the al-Qaeda terror network's continued interest in targeting commercial planes flying to the United States.
British Airways grounded the same flight scheduled Sunday and Monday from London's Heathrow Airport to Dulles International Airport outside Washington, as well as the return flights. Also cancelled was a flight from London to Miami on Sunday. In addition, Continental Airlines said it cancelled Flight 17 for Sunday from Glasgow, Scotland, to Los Angeles with an intermediate stop in Newark, N.J.
Air France scrubbed the same flight scheduled Sunday and Monday from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris to Dulles. As a result, the outbound flights were cancelled.
A U.S. government official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said there were concerns about a handful of flights on those foreign carriers and a U.S.-based airline that flies internationally.
"We continue to receive threat reporting that indicates al-Qaeda's desire to target international aviation," said Brian Roehrkasse, spokesman for the U.S. Homeland Security Department.
Despite those threats, Mr. Roehrkasse said the department had no plans to raise the U.S. terror alert level from yellow, or elevated risk of terrorist attack. Yellow is in the middle of the five-colour coded scale.
U.S. officials have been concerned for some time that al-Qaeda wants to use chemical, biological or radiological weapons aboard an airplane. However, the threat information that led to the canceled flights this weekend did not indicate a specific method to bring down a plane or spread an illness such as smallpox, said a U.S. official speaking on the condition of anonymity.
Instead, the official said intelligence analysts use threat information about the flights, and marry it up to information about types of attacks al-Qaeda may want to launch, to come up with possible scenarios for an attack at any particular time.
The decision to cancel the flights was made jointly by the U.S., British and French governments, said a senior U.S. law-enforcement official speaking on condition of anonymity.
The U.S. government official said the threat information picked up by intelligence agencies specifically mentioned British Airways flight 223 from London to Dulles; British Airways flight 207 from London to Miami; and Air France flight 026 from Paris to Washington.
An official close to French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said the Air France flights were cancelled because of "serious threats." The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, declined to elaborate.
A British Airways spokeswoman said the airline acted on the advice of the British government.
Continental spokesman David Messing said his company cancelled the Glasgow-Los Angeles flight "because we were unable to obtain the necessary security clearance from the Department of Homeland Security and its international counterpart."
The U.S. government official said the three countries discussed a variety of aviation security steps, such as sky marshals on the U.S.-bound flights but Washington placed no demands on the French or British.
The official said there was no direct intelligence to indicate any threat to Sunday's Super Bowl game in Houston.
A White House spokesman, Trent Duffy, said the cancellations show "the administration is going to stand guard and protect the American people."
The law-enforcement official said for weeks, intelligence sources have picked up indications of al-Qaeda's continued interest in using airlines as weapons. But the official said in the last week the intelligence became more specific, singling out certain flights and airlines.
Flight 223 did take off Saturday from London and arrived as scheduled Saturday evening in Washington. No extra security measures were visible around the flight when it took off and landed.
As Dennis Lopez, a lawyer from Tampa, Fla. boarded the flight, he said the talk of all the cancellations was unnerving.
"I'm a little worried and if I had another flight arrangement right now that could take me there I would definitely take advantage of that," he said.
He said he had just arrived from Kuwait and "breathed a sigh of relief" when he landed in London, thinking he was out of the area of most concern.
"It hadn't occurred to me that this flight could be a possible target," he said.
In Miami, people arriving on flight 207 from London said they did not know about the security concerns that led to that flight's cancellation Sunday.
"They certainly didn't announce that on the flight," said Rob Willows of Colchester, England.
Added flight attendant Steven Southern: "We were aware that there was security threats with all the East Coast flights but that's all we knew."
Some of the flights that have raised concerns are the same as those that drew increased attention when the U.S. terror alert was raised temporarily to orange, or high risk, before Christmas.
It returned Jan. 9 to yellow, though government officials said heightened security would remain at some airports and in some cities, such as New York, Washington and Los Angeles.
