Blackout causes flight chaos

Blackout causes flight chaos

JAKARTA: Two successive blackouts at Soekarno-Hatta
International Airport on Thursday forced the airport operator to
divert foreign and domestic arrivals to other airports, officials
said.

The power went out for about five minutes at 5:44 p.m. and for
another two minutes at 6 p.m. The emergency Uninterrupted Power
System (UPS) failed to work. As a result, said one Officer in
Charge (OIC) at the airport who requested anonymity, the
instrument landing system for both runways were knocked out of
action.

Another OIC, Suseno, said that a large number of planes that
were scheduled to land during the blackouts were diverted to
other airports, including Juanda Airport in Surabaya. "We're
still collecting data on the number of canceled landings."

Suseno did not elaborate on the cause of the blackouts and
refused to say whether the airport operator, PT Angkasa Pura II,
would issue an official statement. -- Antara