Daily Theory on Daily Theory

U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer on Thursday demanded that federal officials investigate and fix an equipment malfunction that sparked a two-hour power outage at a regional air traffic control facility earlier this week, leaving controllers briefly unable to see or talk with pilots. The LA Times today reports that controllers lost radio communication with pilots for 15 minutes and that radar scopes were down for two hours.

In a letter to Federal Aviation Administrator Marion Blakey, Boxer urged the agency to figure out WHY a surge-protection system caused backup generators to fail, bringing down all equipment at the Palmdale center Tuesday evening.

Backup generators at the center kicked on immediately after a truck downed power lines about 4:20 p.m. Nearly 75 minutes later, radio and radar systems died when a system designed to protect backup generators from power spikes failed. Power was restored at 7:30 p.m. The agency said no planes came too close to one another during the outage.

The incident snarled air traffic across the country, delaying 348 flights and stranding 25,000 passengers at Los Angeles International Airport alone. Controllers at the Palmdale center direct commercial flights over Southern California and much of Arizona and Nevada as the planes travel at high altitudes between airports.