WORLD'S BIGGEST AIRLINER TOUCHES DOWN AT LAX.

Byline: DOUG IRVING

Staff Writer

It began with a distant glimmer in the morning gray and a murmur passing through the crowd: Here it comes.

The plane took shape as it dropped through the haze toward Los Angeles International Airport -- the huge wings stretching across the sky, the oversize body, the sweep of a skyscraping tail.

On the ground, hundreds of spectators craned their necks and focused their cameras as the biggest airliner the world has ever seen, the Airbus A380, swooped toward the runway.

"Airbus 101 Super ... welcome to Los Angeles Airport," an air traffic controller said just before 9:30 a.m., ushering in a new era of air travel for LAX. "Cleared to land."

The A380's wingspan measures almost as long as a football field, and its tail rises about as high as a seven- or eight-story building. Airbus officials like to point out that the giant plane is much longer than the distance the Wright brothers covered during their first flight.

The A380 came in slowly, lumbering past the hotels and office buildings east of the airport. It seemed to wobble at one point, but the pilot later said he had no trouble and described the landing as easy.

"It was an excellent flight," pilot Claude Lelaie said. "The plane is very quiet; no noise."

Airport police had prepared for tens of thousands of spectators to cram the neighborhoods around LAX. Only about 2,000 showed up, but they broke into cheers and applause as the plane's 22 tires touched down in a puff of smoke at 9:30 a.m.

Los Angeles came in second in the race to welcome the A380 to the United States. One of the planes touched down at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport about 20 minutes before its counterpart landed at LAX.

Inside, the plane that came to Los Angeles had no cabin, just some temporary seats for the two dozen technicians onboard and some computer equipment.

Spools of blue and yellow wires and pink padding lined its unfinished sides.

The plane was scheduled to spend its visit in Los Angeles testing gate equipment such as boarding bridges at LAX. The city has spent about $49 million preparing airport gates and taxiways at LAX and L.A./Ontario International Airport for the A380 and other superjumbo jets; it plans to spend at least $72 million more.

doug.irving(at)dailybreeze.com

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CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1) An Airbus A380, the world's largest passenger jet, passes a taxiing Qantas Airlines Boeing 747 after touching down Monday at Los Angeles International Airport.

Reed Saxon/Associated Press

(2) Spectators watch as an Airbus A380, the world's largest passenger jet, lands at Los Angeles International Airport on Monday, the superjumbo jet's first visit to the West Coast.

Loren Portnow/Associated Press