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| Philippine Airspace almost devoid of Flights last 01/01/23-1957H |
I feel that what happened recently is important enough for me to Post a Blog about as it may be useful in the Future. Anyway, on New Year’s Day in January 1, 2023, the Philippine Airspace suffered an unprecedented or never before seen shut down of such catastrophic Proportions that over 360 Flights were cancelled and around 60,000 Passengers were affected.
As to what happened, let me try to summarize it based on two Articles, one from "The Manila Times" and another from “The A Register” Website. So here is reportedly the Story:
- The 220V Main Power Supply to the Air Traffic Management Center (ATMC) which controls all Flights within the Philippine Airspace failed. Immediately the first of two backup Generators went online.
- After awhile though, the Blowers of the first backup Generator failed and the Generator stopped working. The second backup Generator was supposed to come online to make up for the failure, but for some unknown reason, it too did not work.
- Technicians then (probably in desperation) tried to bypass the two non-working Generators by connecting the System to Meralco's Commercial Power Line which at that time seems to be still working. HOWEVER, that Commercial Line uses 380 Volts, but the ATMC's System is only rated for use for 220 Volts, so naturally some of the Equipment of the System itself was damaged.
So many questions now at this Point. Why did the TWO Backup Generators fail? Why the hell didn't the Technicians know that the ATMC System is rated only for 220V and not for 380V? Why were the Problems with the Generators only found on the Day that they were needed? Didn’t they do regular Drills just to check the Status of these Backup Systems?
Another important thing to consider: The Airport Catastrophe happened just two Days before the Official State Visit of President Bong Bong Marcos (PBBM) to China, which may or may not have some sort of connection to what happened.
* Techies try to bypass damaged UPS, send 380V into Air Traffic System {Archived Link}
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