A pilot complained to air traffic control officials that important runway lights were not clearly visible when he landed his plane during the nationwide blackout on Tuesday, The Sunday Times of Malta has learnt.
Malta Air Traffic Services CEO Carmel Vassallo said his decision to close the runway was partly based on the pilot’s concerns.
“The lights were not working as they should, that was clear. A pilot informed us the runway lights were flickering after landing and this influenced our decision to close the runway,” he said.
The airstrip was closed for nearly two hours on Tuesday evening after an explosion at a power distribution centre plunged the entire island into darkness.
The airport’s runway remained dark for some 25 minutes after both the airport’s back up generators failed to kick in.
MIA staff eventually managed to fix the technical problems, however the landing strip remained off limits for a further 90 minutes because air traffic officials were running safety tests.
Four flights were forced to land in Sicily while a number of others were delayed.
In a statement, MIA yesterday said the 25-minute blackout would not have disrupted any of the scheduled flights.
Brigadier Vassallo said the lack of clear lighting posed a danger to passengers and crew that could not have been ignored.
“The lights across the threshold were not visible. In fact, the lights overall were very dim.
The lights were not working as they should, that was clear, and it influenced our decision to close the runway
“This was a problem we felt needed to be addressed before allowing aircraft to approach,” he said, adding that air traffic officials were obliged to put people’s safety above airport efficiency. Brig. Vassallo explained that a number of guide lights could not be made out from the control tower, while others were not clear enough to direct pilots bring planes down.
These included the central lights that run along the middle of the landing strip helping pilots plot out their descent.
Though airport employees managed to fix the generators, the lights were not operating at the appropriate luminosity levels.
This, he said, was eventually resolved once the airport had increased the output from the generators and improved the lights’ brightness.
“There are international standards which we have to abide by.
“Once we reached those standards we felt it was OK to reopen the runway,” he said, adding that a test take-off was conducted by an Air Malta pilot who gave the final go-ahead to reopen the runway.
MIA launched an internal inquiry as to what had led to both back-up generators failing to kick in. Yesterday, it said the inquiry had not yet pinpointed the cause but said it had ruled out any negligence on MIA’s part.
It also said it had run a simulation of the power cut without having made any alterations to the backup system and encountered no problems.
Meanwhile, Tourism Minister Edward Zammit Lewis called for two separate inquiries to be carried out by the Malta Air Traffic Services and the civil aviation watchdog to establish the cause of the generator faults.
The pilots’ association yesterday also spoke up about the matter, calling on the airport to compensate airlines for the losses made during the runway closure.
In a reaction, the airport said that any discussion on compensation would be made with the operators and not the pilots’ union.