This evening at 6:29 p.m., Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) experienced a significant power disruption that caused the loss of power to the entire Central Terminal Area (CTA). This occurred due to a power "bump" at an off-airport Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) substation, which caused a power disruption throughout the airport.

Within the first hour, power was fully restored to Terminals 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and Tom Bradley International Terminal. Operations in these terminals were not substantially impacted by the power disruption.

Terminals 1, 7 and 8 took longer to restore. The Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) Facilities and Maintenance Group was joined by LADWP to troubleshoot the problem.

Around 9:40 p.m., power was restored to Terminal 7. Around 9:50 p.m., the power at Terminal 8 was restored. Terminal 1 power was restored at around 10 p.m. Power to traffic signals was restored at around 10:45 p.m. Power to Parking Structure 1, Parking Structure 7 and the LAX gateway pylons were restored shortly thereafter. 

A total of 21 flights have been cancelled with 18 total for Southwest and three for United. United also had nine aircraft divert from LAX to other airports. Both airlines anticipate normal operations tomorrow.

 

During the outage, Los Angeles Airport Police (LAXPD) deployed traffic officers to the CTA and surrounding streets to assist with traffic flow. LAXPD also deployed officers to the ticketing areas to help the airlines with crowd management and wayfinding. They also maintained security at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checkpoints at all times.

 

All airport operations have been restored and traffic is moving normal for a Wednesday evening.

LAX will provide an additional media update after it reviews the incident and receives more information from LADWP tomorrow.