Lights failure closes Polonia for 7 hours

Apriadi Gunawan, The Jakarta Post, Medan

Flights returned to normal at Polonia Airport in Medan, North Sumatra, on Sunday after a fault in the runway illumination system forced the airport to close for almost seven hours.

On Saturday evening, a number of incoming flights were diverted to other airports, including Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Canceled flights that had been scheduled to depart on Saturday evening were rescheduled to Sunday.

The head of the Polonia airport management firm, PT Angkasa Pura II, Col. Adi Supranto, said on Sunday that domestic and international flights had returned to normal as the lighting system fault had been repaired.

The breakdown blacked out the airport's runways from around 8 p.m. on Saturday until 2 a.m. on Sunday.

"To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time Polonia Airport has had to be closed because of a fault in its lighting system. But it's all fixed now," he told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

He said it had taken several hours to repair the fault, which had been caused by a short circuit.

However, he declined to say whether an earlier three-hour downpour had contributed to the problem.

The airport's reopening on Sunday was greeted with relief by passengers and those awaiting the arrival of passengers.

"Thank God my daughter finally arrived at Polonia today. I was really worried last night after her flight had to turn back to Malaysia," said Syafaruddin, a resident of Helvetia district, while leaving the airport with his daughter, who had just arrived on board an Air Asia flight from Kuala Lumpur.