April 21, 2004

Los Angeles International Airport suffered its third power outage in 10 days Wednesday when a bird landing on a power line forced the airport to switch to a backup energy supply, officials said.

No lights went out at the airport and no flights were delayed, though Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Donn Walker said the control tower was temporarily disconnected from the power grid as a precaution.

The 10-second outage at 5:53 a.m. came less than two weeks after another bird landing on the same line caused a blackout at the airport that delayed flights for up to 11/2 hours.

The Department of Water and Power said it will look into whether anything can be done to prevent bird-related outages in the future.

"We plan to audit the electrical system to determine if we have the appropriate infrastructure and the appropriate redundancy to ensure power reliability," said DWP board president Dominick Rubalcava.

The department will inspect all transmission lines and substations in the area and determine whether any other factors may have led to the birds' presence on the power line.

"For example, if a neighboring business left a trash bin uncovered or something like that, it's possible that it could have attracted more birds," said DWP spokeswoman Carol Tucker.

Officials are also considering installing spikes on power poles to scare birds away.

Wednesday's outage was the fourth in the area this month, Walker said. The airport blackout occurred April 12, and power outages were also reported Monday and on April 2. Monday's outage, which darkened some buildings at the airport for about two hours, was blamed on a malfunctioning transformer.

"For the most part, our backup systems work fine, and they work the way they should," Walker said. The April 12 outage "was a fluke, but flukes happen," he added.

On Tuesday, DWP officials said they had found the body of the bird believed responsible for the April 12 incident. A chef at a hotel near the airport told the Los Angeles Times he tossed the bird's carcass into a trash bin after a co-worker saw it electrocuted.

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