Radar Failure at Reagan Airport

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Radar Failure at Reagan Airport

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A power outage caused radar to fail and temporarily shut down Reagan National Airport late Monday, grounding planes and stranding hundreds of passengers, Federal Aviation Administration officials said.

A power outage at about 7:50 p.m. EDT caused the airport's backup generators to activate, said FAA spokesman Eliot Brenner.

About 50 minutes later, the airport lost its radar, lighting and telephones, causing the airport to stop all incoming and outgoing flights, Brenner said.

Incoming flights were diverted to Dulles and Baltimore-Washington International airports.

Air traffic controllers worked in a dark tower to route the flights, using radio contact with surrounding traffic control facilities, Brenner said.

http://www.newsdirectory.com/go/?r=cur&u=www.newsday.com/ap/topnewsx.htm

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), April 10, 2000

Answers

It sure is interesting to note that the Airport's backup generators worked for only 50 minutes. This is some backup. Real reliability.

-- Uncle Fred (dogboy45@bigfoot.com), April 11, 2000.

yahoo

Tuesday April 11 6:26 AM ET

D.C. Airport Reopening After Previous Night's Outage

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Reagan National Airport operations will return to normal Tuesday after a power failure the night before forced flights to be rerouted to nearby airports, an FAA spokesman said.

Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Elliott Brenner said power was returned to the tower and radar at about 4:15 a.m. EDT after being lost at 8:40 p.m. EDT Monday night.

The airport across the Potomac River in Virginia from Washington will be up and running at 7 a.m., the usual time it opens each morning after its normal closing each night at 11 p.m., he said.

The FAA had rerouted all flights Monday evening to Dulles International Airport in Virginia and Baltimore-Washington Airport in Maryland. Hundreds of outbound passengers, however, were stranded, many overnight.

``There were some delays, but we're not sure exactly how many,'' Brenner said of the planes that were rerouted.

The power initially went out at 7:50 p.m., but the tower was able to continue operating using a backup generator. A circuit breaker failed on the backup system, forcing the eventual closure, he said.

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), April 11, 2000.


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