Air traffic controllers used cell phones to call for aid after a backup power system failed at a major Southern California control center, disrupting flights across the nation.
The two-hour outage Tuesday at the Los Angeles Air Route Traffic Control Center created a domino effect that grounded, delayed or diverted 348 commercial flights across the country and at least one from Canada. An estimated 25,000 passengers were affected at Los Angeles International Airport alone.
The Air Force delayed the Wednesday morning test launch of a Minuteman III missile at Vandenberg Air Force Base for a day because air traffic controllers could not clear space in the missile's path, Maj. Tina M. Barber-Matthew said.
Operations were back to normal Wednesday, and the Federal Aviation Administration was investigating the cause of the outage.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said the outage was triggered by a pickup truck that hit a power pole. The crash blacked out part of the city of Palmdale, including the air traffic control center.
The center automatically switched to backup generators. They worked for about an hour, but then the system that switches the center between commercial and backup power failed and the building went dark, said Allen Kenitzer, a regional spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration.
Controllers ordinarily are required to turn off their cell phones in the control room out of concern they might disrupt communications with airplanes. When the power went out, the controllers used their phones to contact centers with working radar and asked them to issue warnings to any aircraft that were too close together.
A backup communications system kicked in about 10 to 15 minutes later and the controllers were able to call pilots directly, said controller Bruce Bates.
The center handles high-altitude aircraft, mostly long-distance flights traveling at 18,000 feet (5,400 meters) and above, in Southern California and parts of Arizona, Nevada and Utah.
Bates described the incident as "absolutely the worst scenario you can think of. For a while, the aircraft were up there flying blind."
But Kenitzer maintained that safety was not compromised.
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