GARY T. KUBOTA / STAR-BULLETIN
Airline passenger Myri Mabugat-Madrid was traveling with two
children from San Francisco to Honolulu when forced to wait at
a baseball park on Maui because of a bomb threat. She said
authorities should have evacuated them to a place
that served food and beverages.

Maui travelers rap
handling of bomb threat

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By Gary T. Kubota
Star-Bulletin

KAHULUI >> Airline passengers forced to wait at a baseball park for several hours because of a bomb threat at Kahului Airport have criticized the handling of the evacuation.

The passengers, some with children, said officials should have transported them to a place where they would be able to buy refreshments.

"There should be someplace close by with food," said Myri Mabugat-Madrid, who was traveling with her 2-year-old daughter and 4-month-old infant girl.

Some said authorities should have given them the choice of catching a connecting flight to Honolulu through the West Maui-Kapalua Airport.

"They just don't know what they're doing," said Gary Todoroff, a San Francisco visitor.

Kyle Watanabe, the Civil Defense administrator on Maui, said authorities would have had difficulty finding the passengers if they were dropped off at a shopping center or restaurants.

"We know this was an inconvenience, but at the same time, this was an inconvenience for everyone," he said.

A bomb threat temporarily shut down Maui's Kahului Airport yesterday, causing flights to be grounded, diverted or held on the runway.

Hundreds of passengers en route from San Francisco to Honolulu were transported to the baseball park at the War Memorial Complex in Kahului.

Laura Madrid said she and her husband, Lee, have been to Maui four times, and she was surprised the threat of violence occurred here. "I guess you don't expect it because it's not supposed to happen in paradise," Madrid said.

State transportation spokeswoman Marilyn Kali said the threat was phoned into the Kahului Airport manager's office at 8:15 a.m. yesterday.

Kali said four flights that arrived from the mainland after the call were parked on Runway No. 5 after landing, with passengers held on the planes.

The airport terminal was evacuated.

Other flights were held back or diverted to Honolulu, and interisland flights to and from Maui were halted while the terminal was being searched, Kali said.

Kahului Airport is the primary gateway to Maui and handles thousands of passengers each day.

An initial search found no signs of a bomb, Kali said. Since there are no bomb-sniffing dogs based on Maui, animals were flown in from Honolulu. The airport was reopened at about 1 p.m.

The last major evacuation at a Hawaii airport was in December 1999 at Honolulu Airport. The foreign arrivals area was evacuated and closed for nearly three hours after a suspicious device was found in luggage on a flight from Japan. It turned out to be a battery charger.