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Manila Bulletin devider Philippines devider National devider DOTr eyes full NAIA electrical system audit after power outage cancels, delays flights anew

DOTr eyes full NAIA electrical system audit after power outage cancels, delays flights anew

Published May 1, 2023 08:16 am
The Department of Transportation is eyeing a full audit of the electrical system at the Terminal 3 of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) following a power outage on Monday morning, May 1, that affected more than 9,000 passengers from around 50 flights. DOTr Secretary Jaime Bautista said they are also planning to include the NAIA Terminals 1 and 2 in the audit which is aimed at determining the worthiness of the entire system, identify what needs to be replaced and eventually ensure that electric system failure will not happen again in the future. photo: DOTr “This is something that is already being discussed by our technical people and we will do this as soon as possible,” said Bautista in a press briefing. He said the entire audit requires a big budget and this may undergo the normal procurement process. The full electric system audit for the Terminal 3 requires 60 to 90 days, according to Bautista, and this is expected to drag on if the two other busy NAIA terminals would be included. Meralco, for its part, has committed assistance for the full audit.  Bautista raised the necessity of the full audit after a team from Meralco which responded to the power outage at the NAIA Terminal 3 that occurred at 1:05 a.m. on Monday found out that the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) has no electrical system blueprint for Terminal 3. During the initial inquiry, it was found out that the builder of the NAIA Terminal 3 did not turn over it along with other important documents pertaining to its building plan. It was recalled that the NAIA Terminal 3 underwent a long legal battle between the government and its builder,  Philippine International Air Terminals Company Incorporated (Piatco), which was eventually won by the latter. The operation of the Terminal 3 was turned over to the MIAA in 2009 while the last audit conducted was in 2017. Bautista said some of the recommendations based on the 2017 audit were not implemented.  Supposedly, the auditing of electric systems should be done every five years and MIAA admitted that it was not able to do it last year. What went wrong Technical teams from the MIAA and Meralco said they are now conducting an investigation to determine the reason behind the power outage. But initially, Meralco engineer Noel Espiritu told reporters in the press briefing that it started when the fault indication system of the main circuit breaker shut down the system after detecting abnormalities in the flow of electricity within the NAIA Terminal 3 electrical system. He added that the initial check on the system necessitated the replacement of one of the components of the electrical system which he named as the elbow component.  Bautista, for his part, said the power use in the Terminal 3 may have increased overtime due to the presence of a number of concessionaires inside. Fully restored The power supply at the NAIA Terminal 3 was fully restored at 8:45 a.m. on Monday but Espiritu said there were already pockets of restorations a few hours before the full restoration.  The power outage, however, affected a total of 9,391 passengers of the Cebu Pacific as its flights to and from NAIA Terminal 3 were either cancelled or delayed.  MIAA General Manager Cesar Chiong, however, said that they will not close the Terminal 3 runways today to pave the way for recovery flights of affected airlines. 
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