Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Communication Outage Affects So-Cal Air Traffic
Air traffic towards southern California airports was diverted Tuesday as a "radio outage" affected the air traffic control station in Palmdale. The outage occurred at 5:30 pm, and lasted 90 minutes, causing long range flights from as far away as Canada to be diverted to San Jose, Oakland, and San Francisco airports. Planes headed towards LAX and San Diego were returned or grounded all along the west coast. In all, 800 flights nationwide were affected by the outage and closure of airports, but all flights in the air safely reached the ground.
The source of the communication outage was not known, or else was not reported as of yet by the Federal Airlines Administration. FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown in Washington DC reported that it was not a problem of power. The aircraft could be seen on radar, but ground to air communication was not functional. The Associated Press, however, reported that regional FAA spokesman Allen Kenitzer stated the problem in Palmdale was due to a "major power outage". According to the AP, power was restored after 90 minutes when "the backup generator kicked in."
The California Independent System Operator (Cal-ISO) reported that a record amount of power was used in California on Tuesday. The number of megawatts over the previous record was "roughly equal to the output of two medium powerplants." Cal-ISO continues to encourage conservation by all Californians as the heatwave continues across the state, and has warned power generators to try to avoid all maintenance that could reduce in a decrease of megawatts. No power outages were reported by Cal-ISO.
Power availability is a political hot topic in California. The outages experienced a during the gubernatorial term of Gray Davis are often thought to be a major contributor to his eventual recall. In another election year for the governor's office, new power outages in California could be disastrous to Arnold Schwarzenegger's reelection campaign. Schwarzenegger early on made power plant construction an issue to focus on.
Time will tell what the actual cause of the communication outage was, but it surely gives one an idea of how a power failure in California potentially leads to catastrophe.
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Sources: www.msnbc.msn.com, www.caiso.com, http://news.airwise.com
The source of the communication outage was not known, or else was not reported as of yet by the Federal Airlines Administration. FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown in Washington DC reported that it was not a problem of power. The aircraft could be seen on radar, but ground to air communication was not functional. The Associated Press, however, reported that regional FAA spokesman Allen Kenitzer stated the problem in Palmdale was due to a "major power outage". According to the AP, power was restored after 90 minutes when "the backup generator kicked in."
The California Independent System Operator (Cal-ISO) reported that a record amount of power was used in California on Tuesday. The number of megawatts over the previous record was "roughly equal to the output of two medium powerplants." Cal-ISO continues to encourage conservation by all Californians as the heatwave continues across the state, and has warned power generators to try to avoid all maintenance that could reduce in a decrease of megawatts. No power outages were reported by Cal-ISO.
Power availability is a political hot topic in California. The outages experienced a during the gubernatorial term of Gray Davis are often thought to be a major contributor to his eventual recall. In another election year for the governor's office, new power outages in California could be disastrous to Arnold Schwarzenegger's reelection campaign. Schwarzenegger early on made power plant construction an issue to focus on.
Time will tell what the actual cause of the communication outage was, but it surely gives one an idea of how a power failure in California potentially leads to catastrophe.
_________________________________
Sources: www.msnbc.msn.com, www.caiso.com, http://news.airwise.com
