Power Outage ATL Ground Stop
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International arrivals destined for ATL are diverting wherever they can. At 23:55 Z Turkish 31K from IST on approach to Dulles - Delta 26 from ICN appears to be descending for Detroit etc...
Latest Georgia Power blurb...
6:35 pm -- Georgia Power expects power to be restored to Atlanta airport by midnight. Here is the utility's full statement:
"Georgia Power continues to work closely with Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport personnel onsite to restore power to the Airport as quickly as possible. Assessment and repair efforts are well underway at this time and the company expects to have power restored to the Airport by midnight tonight.
"Georgia Power believes the issue may have involved a fire which caused extensive damage in a Georgia Power underground electrical facility. The fire was safely extinguished by fire crews before Georgia Power could enter the area to assess damage and begin repairs.
"The event impacted not only the underground facilities, but also substations serving the Airport and, while the cause is not yet known, Georgia Power’s system responded by isolating areas where equipment wasn’t operating correctly to ensure safety and minimize damage. No personnel or passengers were in danger at any time.
"Georgia Power has many redundant systems in place to ensure reliability for the Airport and its millions of travelers - power outages affecting the Airport are very rare."
"Georgia Power continues to work closely with Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport personnel onsite to restore power to the Airport as quickly as possible. Assessment and repair efforts are well underway at this time and the company expects to have power restored to the Airport by midnight tonight.
"Georgia Power believes the issue may have involved a fire which caused extensive damage in a Georgia Power underground electrical facility. The fire was safely extinguished by fire crews before Georgia Power could enter the area to assess damage and begin repairs.
"The event impacted not only the underground facilities, but also substations serving the Airport and, while the cause is not yet known, Georgia Power’s system responded by isolating areas where equipment wasn’t operating correctly to ensure safety and minimize damage. No personnel or passengers were in danger at any time.
"Georgia Power has many redundant systems in place to ensure reliability for the Airport and its millions of travelers - power outages affecting the Airport are very rare."
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Seems strange that an airport emergency power back-up system was unable to cope...one imagines that every major airport has some form of standby power that operates outside the mains system. There is a form of aux power but seems to be just for peak demands times.
http://www.ecmweb.com/content/multip...rgency-systems
This outage seems to have been confined to the airport so the reported fire to an underground facility seems to have effected both mains and emergency power distribution.
Emergency power was restored but not all power. Georgia Power spokesman John Kraft said the utility was working to find out the cause of the outage and restore electricity. He could not estimate when that might happen. Spokeswoman Holly Crawford said no areas outside of the airport were affected by the power cut.
http://www.ecmweb.com/content/multip...rgency-systems
This outage seems to have been confined to the airport so the reported fire to an underground facility seems to have effected both mains and emergency power distribution.
Emergency power was restored but not all power. Georgia Power spokesman John Kraft said the utility was working to find out the cause of the outage and restore electricity. He could not estimate when that might happen. Spokeswoman Holly Crawford said no areas outside of the airport were affected by the power cut.
Emergency power operates essential items, not the subway, the doors, the jetways, etc. there’s no way emergency generators could power the entire airport.
Airports typically have fast transfer backup generation for all safety-critical functions - ATC facilities, runway lighting, navaids etc. Terminal facilities may not be on that system - especially a terminal complex as large as Atlanta, which probably draws an extremely large amount of power from the grid under normal circumstances. Fire codes would require the buildings to be equipped with emergency lighting, but that is probably all the backup that exists in the terminals.
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Sad, if the local power company did it all in through carelessness.
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So in a situation like this, tens of thousands of people have their travel plans trashed, unable to get luggage, use bathrooms which have electronic flushes, likely not able to get much good phone or internet service, needing hotel rooms, rental cars, access to medicine etc etc
WHO PAYS?? (Serious question)
WHO PAYS?? (Serious question)
So in a situation like this, tens of thousands of people have their travel plans trashed, unable to get luggage, use bathrooms which have electronic flushes, likely not able to get much good phone or internet service, needing hotel rooms, rental cars, access to medicine etc etc
WHO PAYS?? (Serious question)
WHO PAYS?? (Serious question)
BTW, the airport is open for cargo and private flights going to Signature
Here's an example of what a good media relations team does for you at times of bad news. From the BBC :
"A number of major airlines, including United, Southwest and American Airlines, completely suspended their operations on Sunday."
Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson airport power cut strands thousands - BBC News
Not a word about Delta in the entire article.
"A number of major airlines, including United, Southwest and American Airlines, completely suspended their operations on Sunday."
Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson airport power cut strands thousands - BBC News
Not a word about Delta in the entire article.
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Airports typically have fast transfer backup generation for all safety-critical functions - ATC facilities, runway lighting, navaids etc. Terminal facilities may not be on that system - especially a terminal complex as large as Atlanta, which probably draws an extremely large amount of power from the grid under normal circumstances. Fire codes would require the buildings to be equipped with emergency lighting, but that is probably all the backup that exists in the terminals.
It is unforgivable for each concourse not to have individual back up power, the 'plane train' to have its own back up power each runway lighting set could have backup power and each ground facility such as ILS localizer/glidepath etc. The backup power for the concourses should be enough to run sufficient emergency lights and systems to run the operation normally but perhaps with the loss of heavy non-essential drains like kitchen power to restaurants. This is undergraduate level engineering for a major airport.
This is not something that happened last Sunday; it is a failure that has been waiting to happen for years. Delta as the main operator should request (demand?) a full audit of all essential systems to ensure that there are no other 'single points of failure'. You would have thought that Delta would have learned a lesson from their systems going down due to a similar single point of failure in power supply to primary and backup computer systems.
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So in a situation like this, tens of thousands of people have their travel plans trashed, unable to get luggage, use bathrooms which have electronic flushes, likely not able to get much good phone or internet service, needing hotel rooms, rental cars, access to medicine etc etc
WHO PAYS?? (Serious question)
WHO PAYS?? (Serious question)
It's not even as if this is deliberately done. The electrical installation is offered to the large specialists that do this work as 'Design & Build'. And the bottom bidder gets the job. You try selling resilience to a client strapped for budget.
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