All flights into John Wayne Airport were diverted Friday evening and outbound flights canceled due to a power outage.
The outage was reported just after 7 p.m. at the airport in an unincorporated area of Orange County surrounded by Irvine, Newport Beach and Costa Mesa off the San Diego (405) Freeway.
The airport tweeted at 8:16 p.m. that “JWA is in a full operational stop. No arrivals or departures. All inbound flights are being diverted, all outbound flights” canceled. Passengers were urged to check with their airlines for more information including flights scheduled to depart Saturday.
Southern California Edison indicated on its web site that 28,028 customers in Irvine and surrounding areas were affected by the outage and that crews had not begun to determine the cause and make repairs. It estimated most power would be restored by 6 a.m. Saturday.
The cause of the outage was a substation fire the forced it to be de-energized, according to Lois Pitter Bruce of Southern California Edison. No injuries were reported. Irvine and Newport Beach were most impacted by the outage, she said.
The Orange County Fire Authority tweeted that the vault fire was near Jamboree Road and Michaelson Drive.
Irvine City Councilman Anthony Kuo tweeted that about 100 residents from an apartment on Palatine were temporarily evacuated due to smoke.
There was no estimated time of restoration but with the fire out, crews were free to work to repair the damage and restore service, Pitter Bruce said.