Power failure hampers air traffic controllers at San Diego facility
Radio and radar systems were down for three hours early this morning. Up to 24 planes were affected. Had it occurred at peak time, one controller said, the danger 'would have been incalculable.'
As many as two dozen flights in Southern California airspace were affected by a power failure that shut down radio communications and radar for three hours at an air traffic control center in San Diego.
Workers at a Southern California Terminal Radar Approach Control facility in Miramar immediately began using their cellphones to alert controllers at nearby air traffic communications facilities, including the Los Angeles International Airport tower and the Los Angeles Air Route Traffic Control Center in Palmdale.
The power failure occurred shortly after midnight this morning, causing immediate shutdowns of radio and radar equipment at Miramar center, said Melvin S. Davis, a facility representative for Terminal Radar Approach Control for Southern California, which serves airports in Los Angeles, Burbank, Ontario, Orange County, Palm Springs and San Diego.
"As an air traffic controller, I'm used to certain sights and sounds that, even in a crazy environment, give me comfort," Davis said. "When everything went dead. My heart stopped and my next thought was, 'This cannot be happening.' "
Had it occurred at peak time, he said, "the danger to the flying public would have been incalculable."
The radar and radios came back online about 3 a.m. Exactly what went wrong was not immediately determined, Davis said. But at least two dozen flights were in the air during the outage and an undetermined number were delayed on the ground because of it.
Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said a preliminary assessment was that the problem originated from an outside telecommunications line. He said no commercial flights were delayed, although about a half-dozen cargo flights were.
"You never want to have an outage, but if you're going to have one, that's the time to have it," Gregor said.
andrew.blankstein@latimes.com
