45-minute blackout

The Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 1 suffered a 45-minute blackout when its main transformer exploded yesterday, shrouding the entire building with obnoxious fumes and delaying the departure and arrival of hundreds of passengers.

Airport General Manager Antonio Gana, who personally supervised the restoration of power, said that electricity was partially restored after 45 minutes when the overloaded transformer in the basement of the building was replaced with a backup transformer.

"We could not immediately restore power to the entire building without compromising safety. We had to first restore lights to allow the people inside, especially those at the Bureau of Immigration and Bureau of Customs areas and at the airline counters, to conduct their operations, although manually," Gana said.

Affected by the blackout were five departing and arriving flights of Singapore, Japan, Saudia and Thai airlines. Outbound flights were delayed because departing passengers could not be checked in as computers were shut down by the sudden power failure.

Arriving passengers were kept at the holding area of the Bureau of Immigration as immigration officers could not clear them in the darkness.

Luggage retrieval was also delayed as conveyors became inoperable.

Passengers had to embark and disembark by air-steps as aero-bridges could not be used, being electrically operated.

Hundreds of departing passengers were forced to suffer in long queues as each of them, including their luggage, had to be manually searched as metal detectors were also not working.

The transformer exploded at 12:30 p.m. cutting off all power in Terminal 1. By 3:30 p.m., 95 percent of power was restored and operations inside the airport became normal.