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This article's subject relates to Season 4 of 24.This article's subject relates to Season 5 of 24.This article is a past or current featured article.

Ontario Airport was an airport located in Ontario, California, about 40 miles from downtown Los Angeles. One of its buildings was located at 16 Transport Way.

On Day 5, Terminal One was the site of a hostage crisis. Over a dozen members of the Dawn Brigade separatist group took a large portion of the people at the terminal hostage, and used them to coerce President Logan out of signing an anti-terrorism treaty. However, this attack had the ulterior motive of covering the theft of twenty canisters of Sentox nerve gas, which were hidden in a hangar not far from the main terminal. A total of two security guards and three hostages were killed in the siege. The hostage-takers themselves were all captured or killed.

Day 4[]

After Tomas Sherek was connected to a train bombing in Santa Clarita, Edgar Stiles contacted Ontario Airport and asked them to add an extra layer of security to stop Sherek from leaving the country. ("7:00am-8:00am")

Before Day 5[]

At some point before Day 5, twenty canisters of Sentox VX nerve gas were buried underground at the vacant Hangar BB. Chevensky, a separatist who worked undercover at the airport, kept a key card which could unlock the container of the nerve gas.

Day 5[]

In the morning of Day 5, Jack Bauer met with Diane Huxley and her son, Derek, outside the airport. After talking with them, he left Derek with his mother, and went inside to follow a lead he found hidden in David Palmer's memoirs, about a man named Chevensky, who happened to work at the airport. Before Diane and Derek could drive out, however, Derek noticed that a group of suspicious-looking men were apparently unloading weapons from a truck and entering the airport as well. Derek followed them, hoping to warn Jack despite his mother's advise not to.

Inside, Jack located and confronted Chevensky about his involvement on Palmer's murder. However, at the same time, the lead terrorist, Anton Beresch, bombed his own truck outside the terminal, announcing he was taking over the airport. This distracted Jack long enough for Chevensky to kill himself with a suicide capsule. Beresch took as hostages the 60-odd people that were at the terminal, including Derek Huxley, a woman named Meghan, and her small child. ("Day 5: 8:00am-9:00am")

5x04-chad-bigbeard

Beresch's men guard the hostages

Upon taking the terminal, Beresch ordered one of his men to kill a man who was attempting to use a cell phone to call for help. He and his men then set up cameras to broadcast their demands to President Charles Logan and President Yuri Suvarov, asking them not sign their historic Anti-terrorism treaty. Outside, Officer Mike McLaren arrived and started coordinating the rescue efforts.

OA 3

A hostage is killed on national TV.

At CTU, Bill Buchanan responded immediately by sending in a tactical team headed by Curtis Manning. President Logan told Buchanan that he had to rescue the hostages within 90 minutes, at which point he would sign the treaty whether or not the crisis had been resolved. Buchanan called Beresch's cell phone and attempted to negotiate, but without an assurance that Logan would not sign the treaty, Beresch hung up and executed one of the hostages in front of the cameras. The terrorists then selected Derek Huxley and announced that if Logan didn't comply, they would kill him in 15 minutes.

Jack, who managed to hide himself in the air ducts, sent Chloe O'Brian a picture of one of the hostiles showing the cell-phone-operated detonator on his explosive vest. With Spencer Wolff's help, Chloe found the detonation frequency, 6339. When the terrorist moved out of range of the hostages, Jack set off the vest, creating a diversion that saved Derek's life.

5x03ss01

Clockwise from top left: Anton Beresch, Diane Huxley, Jack peering down through the ceiling, Jack's view down at the hostages

Pressured by President Logan to explain the explosion, Bill Buchanan explained that Jack Bauer was inside feeding information to CTU. Hearing this, Walt Cummings called James Nathanson and informed him of Jack's presence in the terminal and of Jack's connection to Derek. With this information, Beresch jammed Jack's earpiece and threatened to kill Derek if he did not come out of hiding.("Day 5: 9:00am-10:00am") Unwilling to sacrifice Derek, Jack surrendered and told Beresch that the tac team led by Curtis Manning was supposed to come in the North Concourse doors on his command.

After twenty minutes of no communication with CTU, during which time Beresch located and examined a map of the terminal, Jack was forced to call CTU and feed them false information. After telling them that Beresch had moved the hostages into the kill zone of Manning's strike, Jack gave them another point of entry, the emergency door south of Gate 12, and added that he was in a "flank 2 position."

Beresch told one of his men to choose another hostage, but passed over the first choice, a man in a yellow tie (later discovered to be Ivan Erwich). A young student was chosen and executed instead. Later, Jack noticed Beresch slipped a keycard to the man with the yellow tie. The keycard was being stored by Chevensky.

OA 5

Beresch and his men open fire.

The assault was set to proceed as planned, until Lynn McGill aborted the mission, realizing that "flank 2" was an outdated duress signal that was used when Jack was an active agent. Manning switched to his original plan, heading through the North and East gates, and successfully outflanked Beresch and his men. They killed all the hostiles, with Anton Beresch sacrificing himself in the end. There were no other casualties.

The crisis was effectively over, but Jack noticed that the man with the yellow tie was missing. Since Jack was under orders to go back to CTU for questioning, he gave Manning a description of the man so he could start searching for him.("Day 5: 10:00am-11:00am") Examining the security videos with another agent, Manning spotted Ivan Erwich slipping out during the confusion and entering Hangar BB.

There, a handful of other terrorists were waiting with a sealed transport container holding 20 canisters of Sentox VX nerve gas. Erwich used Chevensky's key card to open the container, and they drove the gas out of the airport in a fake S.W.A.T. vehicle. Manning headed up a field team to search the hangar, but they were too late to catch the terrorists. They found only the empty transport container and some dead rats. Manning called for a forensic team to examine the site, and they confirmed that the terrorists' target had been military-grade nerve gas.("Day 5: 11:00am-12:00pm")

Background information and notes[]

  • Ontario Airport has its own group of police officers, which respond immediately to the explosion of Anton Beresch's van. Sergeant Mike McLaren, and Officers Lerma and Bailey are part of this police force.

See also[]

Appearances[]

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