The Garden City Telegram
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Airport sees electrical problems
Published 11/22/2008 in News
By STEPHANIE FARLEY
Garden City Regional Airport staff is working to find the cause of a problem that led to the closure of the airport for about 15 hours starting Tuesday night.
While the airport's back up and running after a failure in taxiway lighting caused by electrical problems, staff still are working to get things back to normal, according to Aviation Director Rachelle Powell.
The Tuesday night closure definitely wasn't the best-case scenario, Powell said. In fact, the shutdown was the worst-case scenario, and occurred because of electrical problems that affected the lighting on all of the airport's taxiways, Powell said. The runway lights were functional and planes could take off and land on the runway, but the taxiways weren't usable because of the lighting issue, which meant planes weren't able to use the taxiways at night to get on and off the runway.
So Powell and staff closed the airport for the night. No planes could land or take off between 4:15 p.m. Tuesday and about 7:16 a.m. Wednesday.
While the airport can function during the day with lighting problems on the taxiways because lighting is not needed, the Federal Aviation Administration requires the airport to provide a minimum amount of lighting at night, and the airport was unable to provide that, Powell said. If there was an emergency situation, Powell said, such as EagleMed needing to transport a medical patient by air, the flight would be deferred to another airport.
At least one of the taxiways is now functional, allowing the airport to remain open at night. According to Powell, the cause of the electrical problems still is undetermined, and there still are some taxiway lights that aren't working. Powell said the airport has an alternate lighting plan if the lighting on the functional taxiway goes out -- the alternative would be above-ground wiring of the lights.
Powell said it's rare to have lighting problems that affect the airport on this large of a scale, adding the electrical problems are on such a mass scale that she estimates about a couple weeks worth of work to get everything back and operating as it should be.
Powell and her staff believe the problem started with a cut electrical wire. As the electrical circuit, consisting of a network that has a closed loop giving a return path for the electrical current, ran at high voltage for a couple of days without detection, it found every weak spot in the wiring. As the circuit and electrical power grounded out, it burned up transformers and wires, as well as light bulbs.
Powell believes the first cut to the wire was caused by construction occurring at the airport -- she believes there may be another cut wire.
"We have a lot of work ahead of us," she said.
Two commercial flights were canceled between Tuesday and Wednesday because of the closure, Powell said.
Repairing the system involves finding every location where the wiring is damaged and repairing it. There also may be some transformers and additional lighting equipment that need fixed or replaced.
Powell has no cost estimate at this point for repairs.
To isolate the problems in the system, she said, staff must dig to locate the wiring and then fix the problem spot. There are about 100 or more lights that need to be assessed, she said, which means a lot of work and time.
At this point, the only impact of having two of the access points down is that if a plane lands in a certain direction, it might have to take time to back-taxi on the runway to reach the lighted taxiway at night, she said.
It's an inconvenience for the pilots and passengers, she said, adding it might take an additional five to 10 minutes for the plane to back-taxi.
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