Sunday, Egypt’s top Prosecutor ordered for an investigation to be opened into a power outage at Cairo International Airport that disrupted flight schedules and caused a blackout in essential terminal for over an hour, state-run news agency MENA reported.
The power loss took place at Terminal 3 on Friday from 12:20am to 01:41am, and caused flight delays for international and domestic planes as well as baggage delays, Al-Ahram Arabic website reported.
Sources familiar with the airport said that the electrical current (high voltage) coming from the power plant in Halmiya was cut, and the standby generators at the airport were disrupted, which are scheduled to operate automatically after the blackout of electricity.
The sources added that the electricity blackout caused the departure delays of 12 international and internal flights, within 3 hours.
Egypt’s civil aviation Minister Sherif Fathy formed an official committee to investigate the causes for the power cut.
The committee recommended that a number of engineers and technicians be referred to the general prosecution for questioning.
The Chairman of North Cairo Electricity Distribution Company, Naji Aref, said that the power outage was due to an internal technical malfunction related to electricity in the airport, noting that all transformers and lines connected to the airport are intact.
The chairman of the company, in statements to (Al-Masry Al-Youm), said that he brought technical support immediately to the airport, after he was informed of the incident.
