- 7.30 pm Chennai flight diverted to Coimbatore; returns to Mysuru at 10.30 pm; again heads towards Chennai
- Passengers left in the dark for hours
Mysore/Mysuru: Malfunction of lights on the runway and also at the Mysore Airport led to the diverting of a Chennai flight to Coimbatore last night. The lights were restored later and the flight returned at 10.30 pm and again took off to Chennai carrying the passengers who were waiting at the lounge for hours.
Mysore Airport Director R. Manjunath told Star of Mysore this morning that there was an issue with the transformer that supplied electricity to the Airport that led to a pitch-dark runway. Though the pilot circled around the airport for over an hour, the lights were not restored and he decided to divert the flight to Coimbatore.
The Chennai-Mysuru IndiGo flight was supposed to land at Mysore Airport at 7.30 pm and then take passengers back to Chennai. The transformer that supplied power to Mandakalli (location of the Airport and runway) suffered a major glitch. Though the Chamundeshwari Electricity Supply Corporation (CESC) personnel were trying to restore the connection, it did not happen anytime soon.
Pilot takes a call
The flight that came to the Mysuru airspace hovered around the airport for nearly an hour. But taking the fuel capacity and flying time, the pilot decided to divert the plane to Coimbatore. After landing in Coimbatore, the IndiGo authorities were waiting for a clearance from the Mysore Airport. But as no news of power restoration was forthcoming, the pilot decided to fly back to Chennai.
Many passengers, who had prior engagements in Mysuru, objected and said that instead of going back to Chennai, they would rather travel to Mysuru from Coimbatore in taxis. They demanded the airlines to allow them to alight the plane. Meanwhile, the CESC staff restored the power supply and the same was conveyed to the IndiGo authorities. The same was communicated to the pilot.
Finally, the flight took off to Mysuru from Coimbatore and landed here at 10.30 pm. Many passengers who were waiting to go to Chennai from Mysuru at 7.30 pm had to wait till 10.30 pm to fly. They boarded the plane that took off in some minutes.
Airport Director Manjunath said that the problem arose due to a bad power supply. “Such incidents do happen and sometimes there is inclement weather. We do take utmost responsibility and have ensured passenger safety,” he said.
There is Backup Runway lighting which international Airports are needed to have, maybe Mysuru Airport can get those lights as a backup for the future.
Yes, it’s the failure of design if they’re are not having back up power supply
There are Portable Backup Runway Lighting which can be kept next to the original lights and they can work for 200 hours in case of a blackout for many days, just Google search “Runway Backup Lighting” and the authorities can find the brand since it is the comment section I have not added the brand name and website. it is a must-have for commercial airports, maybe in the next round of airport privatisation if our airport is privatised then we will see such backup measures.
In mission critical infrastructure and utilities, the designs are generally keeping in mind fault tolerance, no single point of failure, resiliency and fail over systems – end to end.
Applying that concept here, the failover/alternate power source, the cabling and lighting systems (fall back/contingency) should have been installed along with the primary set.
An agency called “Uptime institute” defines, specifies the four 9’s or five 9’s availability of the system (five 9’s ie 99.999% uptime – implies an average of less than 6 minutes downtime per year)