Operations at Iloilo airport back to normal

ILOILO CITY, Philippines - Operations at the Iloilo Airport went back to normal 12 hours following a power interruption Tuesday afternoon.

Efren Nagrama, area manager of the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP), said electricity was restored at around 9p.m. after the airport’s uninterrupted power supply (UPS) caught fire at around 4:30 p.m.

The burnt UPS is responsible for the airfield power lighting.

Nagrama said that the fire extinguishers were not enough to put off the fire.

“We had to use for a firetruck to douse the flames,” he said.

Nagrama said that the airport’s technical personnel tried to restore the operation but it was already too dark when power was restored.

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

Operations went back to normal at around 4:30 a.m. and the runway started accommodating passengers at 5:45 a.m. while the first departing flight bound for Manila left at 6:40 a.m.

Nagrama said nine incoming and nine outgoing flights were either cancelled or diverted. Not surprisingly, the incident enraged passengers who claimed they were not immediately notified about the situation. Several stranded passengers chose to just stay and spend the night at the airport.

Nagrama said that they allowed stranded passengers to use the terminal building. He said they have apologized for what happened and claimed that aviation stakeholders had to be the ones to come up with decisions for personnel and passengers’ safety.

As of yesterday, authorities have yet to determine the real cause of the fire. Initial investigation reportedly showed that the UPS might have overloaded and overheated, which triggered the fire. — (FREEMAN)