DGCA to investigate IGIA power cut

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has initiated an investigation to find out what caused the unprecedented four-hour-long power outage at Delhi airport’s Terminal 3 on Sunday. Sidhartha Roy reports.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has initiated an investigation to find out what caused the unprecedented four-hour-long power outage at Delhi airport’s Terminal 3 on Sunday.

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T3, India’s biggest and most state-of-the-art terminal had plunged into complete darkness at 1.25am on August 7, 2011, delaying nearly 80 flights by five to six hours.

The black-out had affected about 2,500 passengers who were stuck either inside the dark terminal or in their aircrafts or were told to stay outside the terminal if they hadn’t entered already.

“In the preliminary findings, it seems that there was a major problem with the power supply system of the airport that resulted in the outage,” said a senior DGCA official on the condition of anonymity. At present, we are analysing the system to point out the exact factors that led to the tripping and the spark in the back-up system, the official added.

While the ministry of civil aviation has already set up a panel to probe the incident, DGCA — the country’s civil aviation regulator — also sent a team of officials to the airport on Wednesday to investigate the reasons behind the power failure.

On Sunday, while the power transformer feeding the terminal tripped leading to interruption in power supply, a spark in the back-up diesel generator (DG) sets meant there was no power supply at the terminal for four hours.

DIAL has already set up a technical committee to investigate into what it called a ‘rare occurrence’.

A team of officials from DGCA’s Directorate of Aerodrome Standards visited the airport and a meeting, headed by the DGCA chief was also held on Wednesday.

“Though a technical fault can occur in any system, what is worrying is the fact that the back-up system also failed immediately. The authorities need to take measures to prevent a recurrence of such a problem,” the official said.