Air-traffic power outage delays flights

A power outage at an air-traffic control center in Palmdale Tuesday afternoon resulted in hundreds of delayed flights and forced John Wayne Airport to break its legally imposed curfew, officials said Wednesday.

A car or truck that struck a pole about 4:19 p.m. caused the outage at the center, which serves most planes within a 200-mile radius of its Palmdale location, said Mike Fergus, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration’s northwest mountain region. Officials are still investigating why the backup power failed after about an hour.

Fergus said once all power to the center was lost, air-traffic control activities were shifted to other facilities and flights were barred from taking off or landing at a number of Southern California airports, including John Wayne Airport.

“We were shut down for about three hours, from about 5:40 p.m. to about 8:30 p.m.,” John Wayne Airport spokeswoman Courtney Wiercioch said. “When power actually came back on ? we worked with the carriers to try and get what they needed to get their operations as close to normal as possible. The airport made the decision to extend the curfew by one hour.”

Under the legal agreement governing the airport, departures from John Wayne Airport are cut off at 10 p.m. and incoming planes stop at 11 p.m. Wiercioch said extending the curfew allowed most flights to get in or out as needed. A total of 57 flights were delayed, 24 were canceled, and about 10 to 15 planes were flying after curfew, she said.

About 15 to 20 residents called about the after-hours flights, Wiercioch said. The airport will not be penalized because the agreement gives some discretion to the airport director, she said, and “we don’t make decisions like that lightly.”

Fergus said at the affected airports ? including Burbank, Long Beach, Los Angeles and Ontario ? a total of 348 flights were delayed, 49 were canceled and 102 were diverted.