By IANS
New Delhi : Power outages like the one that shut runway lights at the Indira Gandhi International airport Friday may continue till it gets electric supply directly from the main grid, an airport official said Sunday.
The GMR Group-led Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL), which maintains infrastructure services at the airport, has sought dedicated power supply from the northern power grid, said Arun Arora, associate vice-president of DIAL.
“This would provide uninterrupted power supply to the airport. But we are yet to get any response from the government,” Arora told IANS.
He, however, said DIAL had generator backups that run on diesel, adding that it takes just a couple of seconds to activate them.
The blackout incident Friday was caused because the power supply was interrupted thrice in the space of 15 minutes at around 8 p.m.
Every time it took DIAL two-three seconds to switch over to the backup system, causing the runway lights to blink repeatedly.
“It (blinking) is considered a sign of warning to pilots. Although air traffic controllers were in touch with the pilots, they were asked to avoid landing till the power supply was normal,” said Arora.
“Such failures can happen at any time till the airport is provided power directly from the power grid,” he said.