Total blackout at Lagos Murtala Mohammed Airport
Lagos - A complete blackout that engulfed the Murtala Mohammed Airport, Lagos, the nation‘s premier aviation facility, left thousands of Lagos-bound passengers stranded at several airports across the country on Tuesday.
It was learnt that public power supply to the airport as with other public and private facilities had been erratic and the airport operator, the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, usually relied on generators to power the terminal, communication facilities and runway lighting systems.
But the generators at the MMA packed up on Tuesday and flight operations were grounded for hours, as FAAN engineers battled to put the situation right.
Aircraft operated by airlines which on the busy Lagos-Abuja route were still sitting on the tarmac while stranded passengers filled the Abuja airport terminal in the afternoon. Six airlines operate 65 flights daily on the route.
Director of Operations, IRS Airlines, Mr. Kenneth Wemambu, told our correspondent on the telephone that the firm‘s aircraft were still in Abuja by 7.30 pm, well beyond the time that all its flights to Lagos should have been concluded.
He said the problem hadbeen recurrent and government needed to ensure stable power at the airport by creating a separate power supply platform for critical facilities.
Airport Manager of the Mallam Aminu Kano Airport, Mr. Mohammed Al-Nock, had said last week that the airport spent N5m to by a truckload of diesel, which lasted for only 72 hours to supply power to the airport.
Passengers had complained of the intense heat in the General Aviation Terminal building due to non-functional air conditioners at the international terminal.
It was learnt that there was a two-hour outage earlier on Tuesday at the departure hall of the MMA, which left passengers uncomfortable.
It was also gathered that back-up power was provided up till the afternoon to enable international and local aircraft that were already in the air to land at the airport but flights that were yet to depart for Lagos were asked to remain at the point of departure until the situation improved.
Director General, Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, Dr. Harold Demuren, who confirmed that the airports had power problems late on Tuesday, said efforts were being made to ensure constant power supply.
He said that the emergency generators had been put on and that controllers had started clearing flights for landing but that delays were expected due to the backlog of aircraft that were forced to delay take off.
He said FAAN engineers led by the Director of Engineering Services, Mr. Obi Aradu, were “working round the clock to ensure” that power was constant at the airport.
The General Manager, Public Affairs, FAAN, Mr. Akin Olukunle, said that the problem was temporary and had been rectified.
”It was a temporary problem and flights have resumed normally,” he told our correspondent on the telephone at about 8.30 pm on Tuesday, adding that special line which served navigational facilities, was not affected by the outage.
A source said the PHCN usually supplied 16 megawatts to the airport but a recent drop in power generation had cut supply to just five megawatts.
Source: The Punch
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