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It wasn't Beyonce: Super Bowl outage traced to relay failure

Entergy, an electric and gas utility in New Orleans, says a relay device installed to protect Superdome equipment in the event of a cable failure ended up malfunctioning.

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Shara Tibken Former managing editor
Shara Tibken was a managing editor at CNET News, overseeing a team covering tech policy, EU tech, mobile and the digital divide. She previously covered mobile as a senior reporter at CNET and also wrote for Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal. Shara is a native Midwesterner who still prefers "pop" over "soda."
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Shara Tibken
The Super Bowl stopped for about 34 minutes due to a power outage. CBS News
Don't blame Beyonce for this one.

New Orleans utility company Entergy said today that the power outage at the Super Bowl was caused by a problem with an electrical relay device, not by the singer as many people have joked.

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The device was specifically installed to protect the Superdome equipment in the event of a cable failure between the switchgear and the stadium. However, the relay, which has functioned fine at events like the New Orleans Bowl and Sugar Bowl, "triggered, signaling a switch to open when it should not have." That, in turn, caused the partial outage.

Entergy said it has removed the device and new replacement equipment is being evaluated.

A partial power outage at New Orleans' Superdome stopped Sunday's Super Bowl game early in the second half for about 34 minutes. The Baltimore Ravens ultimately defeated the San Francisco 49ers, 34 to 31. Various theories emerged about what caused the outage, including joking speculation that Beyonce's halftime show overwhelmed the stadium's systems.