A power outage occurred in several terminals at Los Angeles International Airport on Wednesday afternoon, threatening outbound flights from the airport.
LAX officials first shared news of the unexplained outage just before 3 p.m., warning passengers of potential trouble.
‘@LADWP is currently investigating a power issue affecting some LAX facilities. The airfield is working normally, but some terminals, traffic lights and other systems may not have power. Our teams are now working on the issues with DWP,” LAX officials said in a tweet.
The airport’s official Twitter account said the problem also caused TSA to stop screening passengers.
Power was finally restored just before 3:30 p.m. and the cause of the outage is under investigation.
This is the tweet LAX officials sent out just before 3pm on Wednesday
“Most” of LAX’s nine terminals were affected by the outage, airport officials said
Airport-wide power outage at LAX airport.
Posted by Curtis Adkins on Wednesday February 1st, 2023
“Due to the power issue, TSA has suspended passenger screening in most terminals, so please allow a little extra time. Crews are responding as soon as possible to restore all systems,” LAX’s Twitter account wrote just before 3 p.m.
At the time, officials didn’t say exactly how many of its nine terminals were affected, but said it was the majority of them.
“Most of our terminals are affected by the power outage and crews are investigating the issue,” airport officials said.
Representatives also said there could be flight delays.
“Some departing flights may be impacted due to lack of power to the jet bridges,” LAX tweeted.
Power was officially restored less than 20 minutes after tweeting about the possible delays.
“Power has been restored or is coming online at most locations. TSA is expected to resume screening in terminals within 10 to 15 minutes,” LAX officials tweeted at 3:08 p.m.
The power outage prompted the TSA to suspend screening for departing passengers
Shortly before 4 p.m., the entire airport was officially supplied with electricity again
The situation could have been drastic for the airport, which is the fifth busiest in the world according to Airports Council International.
Though LAX and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Energy worked quickly to restore power, some were reluctant to celebrate.
“Currently seated at LAX as most terminals are affected by power outages. This is after a flight cancellation,” one person said.
“Are the airlines going to delay boarding their flights as we’re all stuck here in the security line for an hour?” asked a Twitter user.
“This is likely to cause delays across the US airline network and even internationally (especially if Tom Bradley is directly affected),” another person wrote.
One person shared photos from inside the airport showing people standing around the airport when all screens were blank
Another person claiming to be at the airport shared this photo on Twitter on Wednesday afternoon
One person shared photos from inside the airport showing people standing around the airport when all screens were blank.
‘The power just went out at LAX????’ wrote the Twitter user named Dev.
This isn’t the first time the major airport has had significant power problems.
In June 2019, LAX lost power and grounded hundreds of passengers.
At that time, more than 50 flights were canceled because of the more than three-hour failure.
The outage led to cancellations by United and Southwest Airlines.
Southwest was also forced to divert flights.
In June 2019, LAX lost power and grounded hundreds of passengers
The outage led to cancellations by United and Southwest Airlines
Though LAX and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Energy worked quickly to restore power, some were reluctant to celebrate
The Transportation Security Administration was forced to rescreen travelers, a process that took about an hour, officials said at the time.
“An airline allowed passengers whose flights were canceled access to their checked baggage, which resulted in prohibited items being inadvertently introduced into the secure area of the airport,” the TSA said.
“As a precaution, TSA leadership at LAX has decided to rescreen passengers,” the organization said.
A breakdown at a water and power plant department in Los Angeles was determined to be the cause of this outage.