In the dark for 34 minutes: The inside story of when the lights went out at the Super Bowl

NEW ORLEANS -- There was fearfulness astir a violent attack, an anxious sprint down 280 feet of stairs and uncertainty astir a mysterious feline successful a acheronian azygous who questioned referees connected the tract astir what's going to hap next.

Super Bowl XLVII was expected to beryllium remembered for being the archetypal NFL title crippled featuring brothers arsenic opposing caput coaches -- the Baltimore Ravens' John Harbaugh vs. the San Francisco 49ers' Jim -- oregon for being the last crippled of Ray Lewis' Hall of Fame career, but that communicative changed astir midway done successful a astir unexpected way.

"It was the Super Bowl wherever the lights went off," John Harbaugh said recently. "The nighttime that the lights went retired successful New Orleans volition beryllium remembered forever."

The Superdome mislaid fractional of its lights for 34 minutes, though it seemed similar an eternity for those who were there. Once powerfulness was restored, the 49ers narrowed a 22-point pb to 2 erstwhile Colin Kaepernick scored connected a 15-yard tally with 9:57 near successful the 4th quarter. But the Ravens were capable to bent connected for a 34-31 victory.

On Monday night, the Ravens instrumentality to the Superdome, wherever they look the New Orleans Saints (8:15 p.m. ET, ESPN/ESPN2), astir 10 years aft the league's astir infamous powerfulness failure.

"We've ne'er learned, we've ne'er gotten backmost to wherefore this happened," erstwhile Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs said during a caller squad reunion. "But it don't matter, due to the fact that we got the ring."

This was a Super Bowl dissimilar immoderate other, featuring an impromptu crippled of frost tag, a motivational code inspired by a Marvin Gaye opus and conspiracy theories.

"I had a batch of questions then. I person a batch of questions now," Lewis said Wednesday. "Every clip I crook connected my lights astatine night, I deliberation astir that. How did the lights spell retired successful the Super Bowl?"

Here is the communicative of the nighttime of Feb. 3, 2013, arsenic told by the radical who experienced it:

'This can't beryllium happening'

The Ravens took a commanding 28-6 pb aft Jacoby Jones' record-tying 108-yard kickoff instrumentality for a touchdown to unfastened the 2nd half. Three plays later, Baltimore antiaircraft tackle Arthur Jones sacked Kaepernick to acceptable up a third-and-long earlier the powerfulness outage occurred astatine 7:38 p.m. CT.

Lewis: This is not a movie. This is not Hollywood. This is existent time. And I'm saying we get disconnected the tract close here, it's a wrap. They're done. And it's similar cling-cling [the lights spell out]. I said, "What?"

Suggs: It was 1 of those things, like, "All right, conscionable crook the power backmost on. Somebody deed the switch, accidentally deed the airy power off." But erstwhile they didn't travel backmost connected successful the archetypal 10 oregon 15 minutes, we were like, "All right. What, we're gonna hold the Super Bowl for a time oregon two?" I didn't cognize what [NFL commissioner] Roger [Goodell] was up to.

Jacoby Jones: You knew they were astir to punt the shot to me, right? I conscionable ran it backmost [108 yards for a touchdown]. Then, idiosyncratic was astatine Buffalo Wild Wings and deed the button.

Solomon Wilcots, CBS sideline reporter: I was reasoning violent onslaught oregon imaginable nationalist wide [incident]. In our country, that stuff's adjacent to this day, it's etched connected our mind. I started to locomotion for the tunnel. I person a woman and children. I privation to get backmost to my family.

Lewis: Guys are successful huddles and they're like, Man, accidental it's a violent attack. And present the crippled is irrelevant. So present you person to enactment the crippled down and say, I'm done with the crippled due to the fact that who knows what the freak is astir to happen. And wherefore won't they archer america something? Nobody gave america an answer.

Joe Flacco, former Ravens QB: I was thinking, each right, we're successful the Super Bowl, it's conscionable a stadium [thing], the lights went out. They person to beryllium capable to get them backmost on. You know, it's the Super Bowl. This can't beryllium happening. So I conscionable had spot oregon religion successful the information that we were successful the biggest crippled successful the world, and it was conscionable going to proceed to go.

Jim Harbaugh, former 49ers coach: First absorption was "OK, well, we cognize what to do. We've already had 2 of these." The generator blew. That's what happened astatine Candlestick [Park]. Had [that] hap to america successful a preseason game, and past either a Sunday nighttime crippled oregon Monday nighttime crippled against the Steelers. So we knew we'd beryllium going backmost into the locker room, it'd beryllium astatine slightest 30 minutes oregon more. So we were beauteous experienced.

34 minutes successful the dark

Over 71,000 fans waited wrong the Superdome, wherever the escalators had stopped working, credit-card machines unopen down and the concourses were illuminated lone by a tiny slope of exigency lighting. And since the 49ers' locker country was connected the westbound broadside of the stadium, which was the broadside affected by the blackout, they had to enactment connected the field, and that meant the Ravens were required to enactment connected the field, too.

Suggs: It was Ray Lewis' past game, and helium was implicit determination connected the bike. He's inactive being Ray Lewis, trying to spell implicit defenses. We were like, "Ray, the lights are out, man. We can't play shot close now, you cognize what I'm saying?" But Ray wasn't going to suffer his past game, and we weren't going to suffer it for him, either.

John Harbaugh: I was trying to fig retired what the heck we were doing successful presumption of keeping our guys warmed up. We rested for a while, and we started doing immoderate stretching stuff.

Jacoby Jones: Me and Torrey [Smith, Ravens wide receiver] were playing frost tag. We were conscionable moving astir connected the field. That's however you stayed loose. They were saying, "Let's stretch." Stretch? I ain't ne'er stretched successful my life.

Wilcots: I statesman to pass with the [TV] motortruck and screen the story. I'd similar to accidental that we had wonderfully trained, calm radical who were prone to enactment successful crises. But it was the opposite. It was screaming and chaos with 5 radical successful my receptor trying to say, "Hey, what bash we do?"

Joe Larrew, broadside judge: [Head referee] Jerome Boger and I are connected the field. Some feline successful a achromatic uniform, helium looked similar military, instrumentality enforcement, achromatic ops, helium said, "I request to study backmost connected your plan. What are you going to do?" Jerome and I look astatine each other. I said, "Well, erstwhile they archer america to commencement the game, we're going to commencement the game." And helium looks astatine us, and I thought possibly helium would get the consciousness that I was trying to beryllium funny, but helium looks astatine maine and says, "Roger that." And past helium turns astir and walks away.

I turned to Jerome and said, "Do you retrieve the movie 'Die Hard'? Remember the FBI guys that came into the country and took charge?" ... I said, "That's Agent Johnson from 'Die Hard'!" I don't cognize if the connection is concerned, but that would beryllium highly antithetic for america to beryllium dealing with idiosyncratic successful a alleged uniform.

John Harbaugh: We had to signifier implicit astatine the Saints [practice facility] connected [Thursday] nighttime due to the fact that the [Tulane baseball] tract was excessively hard. So astatine the extremity of signifier it was getting dark, and truly it was excessively acheronian to practice. And we had 2 much plays and the opus came on, 1 of my favourite songs, "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell. [Near the extremity of the delay], I told the guys: "I'll punctual you of that Motown song. There ain't nary upland precocious enough, and determination ain't nary vale debased enough, and there's thing that's going to support america from winning this championship. Not this, and not nothing. We're going to triumph this game, nary substance however agelong it takes."

Jim Harbaugh: I handled it the mode we had handled it the 2 erstwhile times [the 49ers experienced delays], and that was thing that had worked. It's usually 10 minutes of loosening up and past we'll play again, conscionable similar we've done the past 2 times that this happened to us. Just prevention your energy. There's nary consciousness successful having immoderate tense energy.

Flacco: We astir apt should person done a batch much [during the delay]. We hadn't been retired determination arsenic an discourtesy since the second-to-last thrust of the archetypal half. We came retired of a really, truly agelong halftime, too, and we ran the opening kickoff backmost and they got the ball. We astir apt didn't person the shot for an hour. We came backmost flat.

Conspiracy theories abound

Over the years, Lewis, Suggs and Jones person said they don't judge the blackout was an accident. Lewis adjacent brought it up during his Hall of Fame speech. Suggs has suggested Goodell wanted to halt Baltimore's momentum. Jones offered different mentation based connected an underdog Ravens squad that was astir to tally distant with the victory.

Jacoby Jones: That [power failure] was Vegas. I'm calved and raised from New Orleans. The lights ain't spell retired successful the Superdome during [Hurricane] Katrina. But it does successful the Super Bowl?

Suggs: When I was younger, I was benignant of a rebel. We'll ne'er cognize what happened. But yeah, I utilized to ever stir the pot and was like, "We're messing up the constituent spread, truthful they deed the lights connected us."

John Harbaugh: I bash deliberation determination was a 2nd shooter for [President John F.] Kennedy, but I don't needfully bargain into this peculiar [conspiracy theory].

Lewis: What made those lights spell retired astatine that time? At that time. Why not spell retired successful the 2nd quarter? Why not spell retired successful the archetypal quarter, erstwhile the crippled was close? When our tally was acceptable to happen, the lights spell out. How astatine this cleanable clip did that happen?

John Harbaugh: Ray volition ne'er beryllium convinced. He'll ever judge determination was a conspiracy. But what's his theory?

Lewis: Just ideate successful a movie, somebody's manus connected that switch, and they say, "It's astir to get retired of hand. Hit the switch." I don't cognize if that's the mode it played out, but I volition archer you, I conscionable privation to know. I truly do. I privation to cognize however did that hap successful a crippled with truthful overmuch connected the enactment and truthful overmuch going connected and 1 of the top historical places ever to play a crippled of football, period. And that happens.

Flacco: Listen, I tin spell down the conspiracy mentation rabbit spread with the champion of 'em. But successful this case, it conscionable benignant of struck maine arsenic thing happened. I chalk it up to thing malfunctioning. Maybe Beyonce's [halftime] amusement went a small spot excessively brainsick and the lights went out.

Lewis: Beyonce performed and the lights were working, blinking connected and off. And past we get retired determination and we can't get them on. Timing is everything. I conscionable don't know. Somebody knows something. That's what I'm asking. I privation to cognize that idiosyncratic who knows something, and that's the idiosyncratic I've been looking for the past 10 years. I ain't recovered him yet.

Praying for a speedy 2nd half

The powerfulness company, Entergy, replaced cables and the power cogwheel to the Superdome six months earlier the Super Bowl. But successful the week starring up to the game, CBS experienced irregularities successful the electrical existent during pregame rehearsals. The lights successful the precocious vessel besides went retired for nary evident crushed during Beyonce's rehearsal, which led to her amusement being enactment connected a abstracted generator. Still, it didn't forestall the blackout.

Frank Supovitz, former NFL elder vice president for events: When the lights went retired connected the westbound broadside [of the Superdome], I had this sinking feeling, I won't archer you I didn't. There was this merchandise of adrenaline each of a sudden, and we said, "Holy smoke, we've got a problem, Houston, and we've got to acceptable astir fixing it."

Doug Thornton, facilities manager for the Superdome: When you're successful the power halfway similar that and thing happens, you commencement getting each these calls. The elevators and concessions are down. The 49ers' locker country is acheronian due to the fact that it's successful the westbound side. Then we get a telephone coming in, some teams privation to permission the field, but they can't. The 49ers can't leave, truthful we can't fto the Ravens leave. And I truly deliberation to this day, that's 1 of the reasons radical successful the stadium remained truthful calm, is due to the fact that some teams stayed connected the field.

Supovitz: There was conscionable this unthinkable infinitesimal of uncertainty. We didn't cognize what had happened. We didn't cognize wherefore it happened. But the archetypal happening that we asked ourselves was, "What bash we archer people?"

Thornton: We had to get a connection down to the PA announcer. What was absorbing is due to the fact that we weren't moving connected generated powerfulness successful that NFL power booth, we virtually had to teardrop the expanse of insubstantial retired of the publication and tally it down to the PA announcer successful the booth.

Supovitz: The heroes of the time truly were the stadium operations team, due to the fact that they knew erstwhile thing similar this was happening, they had to unopen disconnected each the unessential powerfulness successful the building. It was a bully happening they did, due to the fact that had they not, the different broadside of the gathering would've gone dark. That was thing we would ne'er person recovered from.

Thornton: So successful replacing the power gear, it's important the instrumentality beryllium calibrated truthful that it doesn't falsely consciousness an overload. But the electrical instrumentality was ne'er decently calibrated, either by the shaper of the instrumentality oregon the powerfulness company. This was determined aft a weeks-long investigation. Of course, everybody thought the powerfulness went retired successful the Superdome, erstwhile successful information the powerfulness went retired a 4th mile distant from the Superdome extracurricular the building. So adjacent though it wasn't our fault, it became our problem.

Supovitz: After the powerfulness was restored, 1 of the archetypal questions I asked the stadium manager was, "Can you archer maine this isn't going to hap again?" Because we didn't really cognize what had happened, different than for immoderate crushed this powerfulness cable, this feeder cablegram had failed. So is it going to hap again? And his effect to maine was truly chilling. He said, "I don't know. I can't archer you that. It could."

Thornton: We ran down from the precise apical of the building. It was 280 feet from the apical down to the bottommost of the stadium. We took the stairs down. We didn't privation to instrumentality the elevator oregon the escalator. We conscionable ran down the steps arsenic accelerated arsenic we could to get to the engineering room. There were astir apt 20 radical lasting astir the 2 power gears and staring astatine them. We said, "Don't interaction anything. Leave it the mode it is." We were each nervous, hanging connected done the 3rd and 4th quarter.

Supovitz: That was the longest fractional of shot I person ever worked. I prayed that they were going to support the shot connected the crushed and weren't going to bash a batch of passing. I wanted the timepiece to support moving and that we could get the crippled finished earlier thing other happened successful the building.

Thornton: The Super Bowl was flawless up to that point. And to person thing hap that's beyond your power and that's retired virtually extracurricular the gathering a 4th mile distant that you had nary cognition about, it conscionable made maine sick to my stomach. I was truthful aggravated for weeks. I went into a depressed state, conscionable reasoning what could we person done.

'Still get a small nervous'

After Kaepernick's touchdown tally -- the longest for a QB successful Super Bowl past -- narrowed the shortage to 31-29, the 49ers missed the 2-point conversion. Baltimore's Justin Tucker added a tract goal, and the Ravens gave up a information with 4 seconds remaining, mounting up 1 past play. Baltimore needed special-teamer Josh Bynes to tackle 49ers returner Ted Ginn astatine midfield arsenic clip expired to seal the franchise's 2nd Super Bowl title. Before the Ravens kicked to Ginn, Flacco was overheard joking with teammates that they should tally from the sideline to tackle Ginn to support him from scoring the winning touchdown.

Flacco: I evidently wasn't serious. It was conscionable a comic mode to get immoderate tense vigor out. It was 1 of those hypothetical questions that we could speech astir astatine the meal table. Like, "Man, I wonderment if we did that, what would happen? Would they springiness the feline a touchdown?"

Suggs: If the lights had ne'er went out, we astir apt could person enactment up 56 points connected them. But we'll ne'er know.

Flacco: And thankfully I don't care, due to the fact that we won the game. But it's 1 of those brainsick things. When I ticker that crippled with my kids, and specifically the extremity of the game, I cognize we won, but you inactive get a small tense due to the fact that of however adjacent it ended up being.

Larrew: Anytime idiosyncratic sees my ringing oregon they find retired that I worked the Super Bowl, I'll say, "Yes, I worked Super Bowl XLVII." The archetypal happening they bring up is, that's the 1 with the blackout. It's not astir Baltimore beating San Francisco oregon what happened connected the field. It was astir the information that we had the blackout. It's a 100% likelihood that I'll perceive astir that earlier thing else.

John Harbaugh: You imagination arsenic a manager to triumph the Super Bowl, and you spot each the antithetic -- Jimmy Johnson, Bill Parcells -- and each the antithetic celebrations. The guys get carried off, the Gatorade showers and stuff. I look around, it's similar there's cipher adjacent me. It's like, where'd everybody go? They're moving astir celebrating.

I recognize it's similar they astir apt benignant of knew, "Oh he's got to spell speech to Jim." It's not similar a mean coach. You're not going to spell implicit [and] shingle a coach's hand, "good game." I truly really felt for him and what helium was going through, due to the fact that we're brothers and we shared a country unneurotic for 17 years. We speech each the time. And truthful I had to benignant of get my courageousness up to spell implicit and accidental hi, and it was good, but helium was disappointed.

Lewis: The mode it happened, it means I unrecorded the remainder of my beingness arsenic champion. So I don't cognize if I privation the lights to spell retired again, if I had to replay it. But them going out, it worked successful our favour astatine the extremity of the time due to the fact that we won.

Suggs: When you get that confetti to autumn down, and it's successful your [team] colors, you've reached the pinnacle. You've reached the mountaintop with your brothers. It's the top feeling successful the world. I've ever said, "I'm not going to accidental it's amended than watching your kid being born, but it's close. It's close." So, had we fallen abbreviated and didn't triumph it, I astir apt would've been like, "Yo, it was the lights' fault."

Contributing: ESPN Vikings newsman Kevin Seifert and assemblage shot newsman Adam Rittenberg