LOS ANGELES, CA — A man who opened fire inside a Los Angeles International Airport terminal in 2013, killing a Transportation Security Administration officer and wounding three other people, pleaded guilty Tuesday to murder and other charges.

The plea agreement between Paul Ciancia, 26, and federal prosecutors will spare him the death penalty, but he still faces life in prison without the possibility of parole. Formal sentencing is set for Nov. 7. Ciancia pleaded guilty to 11 felony counts stemming from the Nov. 1, 2013, shooting rampage in the airport's Terminal 3, including the murder of TSA Officer Gerardo I. Hernandez.

As part of the plea deal, prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty, but the murder charge to which Ciancia pleaded carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison. Weapons charges carry another mandatory 60 years in prison, in addition to several years behind bars for other charges. Ciancia, standing about 5-foot-3 and shackled at the waist, wrists and ankles, surveyed the crowd as he was escorted into the courtroom for the 40- minute hearing.

Speaking in a high-pitched, strangled-sounding voice that is apparently a remnant of neck wounds suffered when he was shot by police, Ciancia told the judge he was taking about a half-dozen medications for various ailments. When asked by U.S. District Judge Philip Gutierrez if he was indeed guilty of the premeditated attack in which he shot Hernandez multiple times at point-blank range, Ciancia said yes.

Members of the victims' families filled the downtown Los Angeles courtroom, many weeping throughout the proceeding.

One of the survivors, 38-year-old TSA Officer Tony Grigsby -- who was wounded in the ankle and foot but has returned to work at LAX -- said outside court that the plea has given his family "some closure," but he "cannot fathom" the motivation for the attack.

A member of Hernandez's family, who did not wish to be identified, wept as she recalled the late officer -- the first TSA agent to die in the line of duty in the agency's 15-year history -- as "a really good father who just loved his kids. It's such a shame." Ciancia walked into Terminal 3 at LAX and opened fire with a semiautomatic rifle while carrying dozens of rounds of ammunition, along with a signed handwritten note saying he wanted to kill TSA agents and "instill fear in your traitorous minds."