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Article: Air Traffic Control Center Goes Dark in California; Radar, Radio Both Out After Loss of Power
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- August 10, 1995
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
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The air traffic control center that handles flights over Northern
California and a large part of the Pacific Ocean suddenly lost all
radar and radio contact with more than 60 airliners during the
morning rush yesterday.
For a brief period, thousands of passengers were literally flying
blind in some of the country's busiest airspace as controllers
grabbed cellular phones to jury-rig emergency communications through
other air traffic centers. They had lost contact not only with the
airplanes in their charge, but also with other air traffic facilities
that could pick up the slack.
William Jeffers, the Federal Aviation Administration's director of
air traffic, said the outage was caused when two ...