Radar problems at swampy Thursday Night

[sparkydave 7]

Just seen this report about bangkok airport Wopps

 

 

Radar problem causes flight delay at Suvarnabhumi airport

 

 

BANGKOK, June 22 – The power supply from an uninterruptible power source (UPS) caused problems for radar controlling flights landing at Suvarnabhumi airport, forcing some aircraft to land at U-Tapao Airport in Rayong-Chon Buri provinces, according to Deputy Transport Minister Chadchart Sittipunt.

 

U-Tapao is 115 kilometres (about 70 miles) from Suvarnabhumi airport.

 

Mr Chadchart said that the UPS supplying electricity for the radar system experienced problem on Thursday evening, and the back-up power supply was not working. Engineers took around 40 minutes to repair.

 

During the time that there was no radar system functioning, some flights were waiting, queuing to land at Suvarnabhumi airport, but six flights were running out of fuel and opted to land at U-Tapao without any safety problems.

 

The aircraft re-fueled at U-Tapao before returning to land at Suvarnabhumi Airport.

 

He said that radar at Don Mueang airport was also not working given that it was under the single aircraft navigation system covering both Don Mueang and Suvarnabhumi. Each airport facilitates incoming flights with its own control tower's navigation system only when aircraft enter a 10km radius of the airport.

 

A back-up radar system that could cover both airports together is at Thung Maha Mek and could operate effectively, but there was no staff manning the system at the time when it was needed, when there was power supply problem.

 

Mr Chadchart said the incident caused delays of 40 minutes for incoming flights while the longest delay for departing flights was three hours. (MCOT online news)

[Grandpollo 366]

I guess it wasn't all that uninterruptable a power supply after all.

 

The Transport Ministry has solved the problem by officially changing the device's name to a mostly uninterruptable power supply.

[Parkwahn 61]

I got in Thursday nite, the pilot said it was weather I guess he never wanted to scare the passengers.. landed at 20.10 a 20 min delay circling ...

[atlas2 4,329]

I was waiting for my son arriving qantas 2....Kept getting different "confirmed' landing times ....Saw the diversions appearing on the arrivals board and was getting all jittery when nothing seemed to be landing. He is an un accompanied minor and a diversion in those circumstances is less trivial.

 

He landed an hour late and the reason circulating was runway repairs!!

 

Just happy to see him.

 

Mind you this trip and his last one, just before Christmas Qantas managed to lose his luggage!

[Gus 97]

Swampy is never out of the news for long is it?

[nkped 1,208]

It would be interesting to hear what happened after landing for the planes that diverted to Utapao. When you are low on fuel, getting wheels on the ground is the critical thing, but is not the end of the story when you land at an airport which is not set up to service big international flights.

[tomcat76 327]

I was waiting for my son arriving qantas 2....Kept getting different "confirmed' landing times ....Saw the diversions appearing on the arrivals board and was getting all jittery when nothing seemed to be landing. He is an un accompanied minor and a diversion in those circumstances is less trivial.

 

He landed an hour late and the reason circulating was runway repairs!!

 

 

 

I think these runway repairs at Suv will be going on for a few more weeks ('think it was advertised as 30-40days worth when they began), resulting in continuing single runway ops and delays during peak hours. If there are radar or power issues, then that's on top of the SRO. But I wouldn't worry much about running out of fuel due to in-flight delays (earlier post). Requirements for reserve fuel are fairly extensive, documentation of fuel carried very thorough, and monitoring of fuel burn vs fuel remaining quite meticulous (one of the few things they actually have to do anymore enroute...). There's always a planned alternate (U-Tapao most of the time I guess, depending on weather of course) and a fuel allowance for getting there (plus all the related contingencies plus a general percent reserve plus plus plus...).