Bird strikes power line at L.A. airport, knocks out some services

By Michael Fleeman LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A bird struck a high-voltage line at Los Angeles International Airport on Friday, causing a brief power outage that shut down baggage carousels, escalators and people movers, an airport spokeswoman said. No flights were affected by the morning outage and the terminals remained open at the nation's third busiest airport, said spokeswoman Amanda Parsons. The bird hit a line at the western end of the airport away from the terminals in a service area between the runways, according to Parsons. Power surged and then went out for 10 seconds, and crews were manually resetting baggage carousels, escalators and moving walkways, she said. No injuries were reported. The outage did not affect power to the air-traffic control tower, Parsons said. “It’s not been a huge impact,” she said. “It’s really just been an inconvenience and an extended time in collecting baggage and an extended walk because those escalators and moving walkways were taken off line.” (Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Jeffrey Benkoe)