Brief Outage At LAX Coincident, Not Coordinated Attacks

LOS ANGELES, CA -- Los Angeles International Airport experienced a brief power outage Friday, but it did not disrupt flights and was described as a minor interruption that had little impact on the facility's operations.

The outage occurred at 8:30 a.m., about 50 minutes before San Francisco experienced a wide-scale outage that may have been caused by a fire at a substation. A power outage also affected subway service in New York on Friday, and the trio of electrical disruptions in three of the nation's largest cities prompted a host of speculation from online conspiracy theorists -- but the outages appeared to be mere coincidences.

Charles Pannunzio, a pubic relations officer with LAX, said the brief power surge caused a few minor hassles at the airport, but the outage was over in seconds. He said the escalators and moving sidewalks needed to be reset manually and the security checkpoint at the Tom Bradley International Terminal was closed for a few minutes.

The outage did not impact arriving flights because it occurred during the daylight when runway lights were not needed, he said.

-- City News Service, photo via Flickr/Mark Luethi