UNPLUGGED SCANNER FAILURE AFFECTS LAX FLIGHTS DISEMBARKING PASSENGERS UNDERGO ADDITIONAL SCRUTINY.

Byline: Daily News Staff and Wire Services

Passengers on four planes arriving at LAX on Saturday morning had to undergo additional safety procedures after a security breach shut down the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport from which they had departed, officials said.

The passengers were taken by buses to the baggage claim area rather than being allowed to walk through terminals, and those continuing to other destinations had to be rescreened before re-entering secure areas, said Harold Johnson, a spokesman at Los Angeles International Airport.

The passengers were among those on various flights nationwide impacted by the breach in Seattle, an FAA operations officer said.

The Sea-Tac airport was closed for a short time Saturday morning after authorities found a problem with one of the X-ray scanning machines, the Federal Aviation Administration official said.

The airport sent four flights to Los Angeles - three from Alaska Airlines and one from United - that needed to go through the so-called reverse screening procedure once they arrived, officials said.

Officials could not say how many passengers were affected, but Johnson said the security measures caused no major delays in Los Angeles.

Seattle officials didn't know how many people crossed through the checkpoint operated by Alaska Airlines before the malfunction was detected. The metal detector was not functioning ``for a period of about 15 minutes as far as we can tell,'' airline spokesman Jack Evans said.

Security people with bomb-sniffing dogs checked the concourses.

Meanwhile, an Oakland airport terminal was evacuated Saturday after it was determined that passengers aboard a Southwest Airlines flight went through the same detector. The problem was identified after the plane had already taken off, said Oakland International Airport spokesman George Turner.

The Oakland-bound plane landed without incident, but as part of the airport's post Sept. 11 security plan, all travelers in that terminal were evacuated until passengers aboard the plane could be rescreened and allowed to reboard connecting flights, Turner said.

Last week, Burbank Airport was briefly evacuated after a plane arrived from Phoenix where one or more passengers had not been properly screened.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1) Mike and Angie Collins of Shreveport, La., watch passengers make their way through security checks Saturday at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport after a scanner failure.

(2) Passengers at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport pass through security checks, some of them for the second time, on Saturday after an X-ray machine failure closed terminals and prompted repeated security inspections.

John Froschauer/Associated Press