Iloilo airport operations back to normal

MANILA, Philippines - Operations of the Iloilo airport were back to normal yesterday following a power interruption Tuesday afternoon.

Efren Nagrama, area manager of the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines, said electricity was res-tored at around 9 p.m. Tuesday after the airport’s uninterrupted power supply (UPS), responsible for the airfield power lighting, caught fire four and a half hours earlier.

Nagrama said fire extinguishers were not enough to put off the fire. “We had to use for a fire truck to douse the flames,” he said.

Nagrama said the airport’s technical personnel tried to restore the operations but it was too dark already.

“So, we sent a notice to airmen about the problem and that was when they decided to cancel incoming and outgoing flights,” he said.

Nagrama said there were nine incoming and nine outgoing flights that were either cancelled or diverted.

Expectedly, the incident enraged passengers who said they were not notified immediately.

Nagrama said they apologized for what happened, explaining that aviation stakeholders had to come up with such a decision for the personnel and passengers’ safety.

Several stranded passengers chose to just stay and spend the night at the airport.

Nagrama said they allowed the stranded passengers to use the terminal building.

The situation went back to normal at around 4:30 a.m. yesterday.

Nagrama said the runway started accommodating passengers at around 5:45 a.m. yesterday while the first departing flight bound for Manila left at 6:40 a.m.

As of press time, airport authorities had yet to confirm what caused the fire.

But Nagrama said initial investigation of the technical personnel showed that the UPS might have overloaded, causing it to overheat, triggering the fire.– With Rudy Santos