Rainstorm Disrupts Power Supply At Lagos Airport

There was panic and pandemonium at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos recently as a heavy rainstorm disrupted power supply at the nation’s flagship airport.

The development led to the disruption of activities at the airport, a situation that also caused a lot of discomfort for passengers, workers and other airport users.

The delay in putting on the generators by officials of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria raised serious concern among aviation stakeholders.

FAAN, in a statement, however said the power surge was from the two supply sources of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) to the airport.

The statement by the General Manager, Corporate Communications, Mr. Yakubu Dati, said, “The airport is connected to two main power sources from Ejigbo and Egbin Power stations. The storm initially knocked off the power supply from Ejigbo, which led to a three-minute outage at the airport before our engineers switched over to the alternate power supply source from Egbin.

“That supply line was later affected by the storm, leading to another three minute power outage.”

He said, “Our engineers then switched over to the airport’s standby generators, some panels of which were unfortunately soaked with water, due to the heavy flooding that resulted from the heavy rainfall.

“This resulted in a blackout at the “E” wing of the airport, including the avio bridges. It was for this reason that arriving passengers on an international flight were processed through an alternative route at the terminal and in the process, were exposed momentarily to the rain.”

“All departing flights were also delayed for about 30 minutes, to enable our engineers rectify the faults in the generators. Full power supply was later restored to the airport and all operations resumed in earnest. There were no accidents or injuries to anybody at the airport as a result of the power outage.”