Equipment Failures

The world's largest particle collider malfunctioned within hours of its launch, but its operator didn't report the problem for a week. The European Organization for Nuclear Research reported that a 30-ton transformer that cools part of the collider broke, forcing physicists to stop using the atom smasher a day after starting it up. The faulty transformer has been replaced and the ring in the 17-mile circular tunnel under the Swiss-French border...

The world's largest atom smasher, which was launched with great fanfare this month, has been damaged twice and will be out of commission for at least two months, its operators said. The European Organization for Nuclear Research said that a large amount of helium had leaked into the 17-mile circular tunnel that houses the Large Hadron Collider deep under the Swiss-French border. The massive collider had to be shut down only 36 hours after it began operating. A second failure took place midday Friday.

An instrument that stores and transmits science data back to Earth has broken down on the Hubble Space Telescope, forcing NASA on Monday to postpone a long-scheduled repair mission to the ailing, 18-year-old telescope. The 136-pound control unit and science data formatter, which separates data from the telescope's five major science instruments into packets for transmission to scientists on Earth, broke down Saturday night, according to NASA scientists.

A faulty instrument landing system that delayed flights this week at Los Angeles International Airport returned to service Thursday after technicians repaired the device's radio antenna, authorities said. Ian Gregor, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said the equipment was reactivated about 8:30 a.m. after flight tests involving one of the agency's aircraft were successful. The system for the airport's northern runways failed early Monday after heavy fog rolled in along the coast, forcing air traffic controllers to route incoming aircraft to the south side of LAX. Instrument landing systems transmit radio signals that guide airplanes when visibility is poor.

The National Transportation Safety Board made official what has been clear for months -- that the failure of undersized steel gusset plates was the probable reason Interstate 35W bridge buckled and fell into the Mississippi River last year, killing 13 people. The board found that engineers who designed the bridge in the 1960s either failed to calculate or improperly calculated the thickness needed for the plates that were to hold the bridge together. The board also blamed state and federal highway officials for not catching the design flaw when bridge construction was approved.

NASA's $154-million device to recycle urine into drinking water aboard the International Space Station shut down again as engineers at Cape Canaveral scrambled to figure out the problem. The system's urine processor was started up Thursday but promptly shut down. Flight controllers reactivated the device early Friday. It ran for two hours before sensors detected motor problems and shut it down again. The system needs to be working before NASA doubles the size of the space station crew, from three to six, which it hopes to do by June.

Spacewalking astronauts completed almost all of the greasy repairs on a gummed-up joint at the International Space Station on Saturday, leaving just a few chores for another day. As spacewalk No. 3 was getting underway 225 miles up, a new recycling system for converting urine and other wastewater into drinking water broke down again. It was the third day in a row that the processor inexplicably shut down, and it appeared to be the same kind of sluggish motor trouble seen before.

A twin-engine plane with two people aboard landed safely at Van Nuys Airport after an equipment failure forced the plane to return to the airport after taking off Tuesday morning. The pilot of the privately owned Cessna 310 reported landing gear difficulty just after 11 a.m., said Harold Johnson, an airport spokesman. The plane landed safely about 12:20 p.m., and both passengers walked away from it. It landed on both rear landing wheels and, before it came to a stop, plopped down on its nose.

Water officials said Tuesday that pumps designed to push water to the upper reaches of a hillside Yorba Linda neighborhood failed during a Nov. 15 firestorm, possibly explaining why firefighters were forced to abandon the area and let homes burn after fire hydrants went dry. The disclosure came four days after Orange County fire officials blamed the loss of as many as five homes in the neighborhood on lack of water from fire hydrants.

New telecommunications equipment designed to deliver information to controllers in a San Diego facility that handles air traffic across Southern California malfunctioned early Wednesday, delaying 14 flights out of Ontario International Airport. The nearly two-hour outage started at the Terminal Radar Approach Control Center about 5:30 a.m.