An engineer's error led to Tuesday's blackout of a million homes, Florida Power & Light announced Friday afternoon.
In a press release, the utility stated: ``A field engineer was diagnosing a switch that had malfunctioned at FPL's Flagami substation in West Miami. Without authorization, the engineer disabled two levels of relay protection. This was done contrary to FPL's standard procedures and established practices. Standard procedures do not permit the simultaneous removal of both levels of protection.
``During the diagnostic process, a fault occurred and, because both levels of relay protection had been removed, caused an outage ultimately affecting 26 transmission lines and 38 substations."
In a prepared statement, FPL President Armando Olivera reiterated apologized. "We understand that this event caused a significant inconvenience," he said.
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