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SFO power outage in one of several recent airport outages
A massive power outage at San Francisco International Airport Tuesday night had all the makings of a natural mosh pit, at all three domestic terminals, but technicians got it all straightened out in about an hour.
SAN FRANCISCO - A massive power outage at San Francisco International Airport Tuesday night had all the makings of a natural mosh pit, at all three domestic terminals, but technicians got it all straightened out in about an hour.
Major airports are like great big towns; all complex cities and no suburbs. Technology can be and was unforgiving.
Ticketing, baggage, security, gates, boarding and disembarking were affected. Two Alaska Airlines flights were diverted to San Jose's Mineta International.
Neither air traffic control nor airfield operations were impacted at all. That's because SFO's most critical generators immediately kicked in. Also, unaffected were the BART station and the Air Train that carries passengers from terminal to terminal or parking.
PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Power outage leaves San Francisco International Airport in the dark
The cause: failure of a high voltage power line belonging to the airport; not PG&E.
Many passengers wondered or complained on Twitter about being stranded on board. Chris Pedersen, who we met in Redwood Shores, was on an incoming United flight.
"We get about 20 feet from the gate and the pilot comes on and say, 'Unfortunately, there's been a power outage in our terminal,'" said Pedersen.
Passengers took it well.
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"The Captain did a great job on United. He kept everyone calm. Everyone was understanding," said Pedersen.
Last February, there was a big outage month across the nation.
A one-hour power outage at Los Angeles Airport stopped security clearing, delayed flights, halted escalators and trapped some people in elevators.
At Oakland International Airport, a PG&E substation fire essentially shut the airport down for two hours, also leaving some 50,000 Oakland residents without power far longer.
New York's JFK suffered a multi-day outage in one of its terminals. That led to 39 of the 64 cancelations with 22 flights diverted to other airports.
The SFO incident is under intense investigation.
"I think the airport will probably think twice about putting more layer of redundancy in case something like this does happen," said Pedersen.
Airports are so complex and demanding, even with backup systems, major failures occasionally occur especially after a multi-year pandemic period when few traveled.