ATL (Atlanta) 1 Switchboard Fire + 1 Burned Backup = 11 Hour Power Outage in World's Businest Airp
ATL (Atlanta) 1 Switchboard Fire + 1 Burned Backup = 11 Hour Power Outage in World's Businest Airp
(OP)
The Atlanta Airport suffered a 11 hour power outage affecting nearly all flights across the eastern seaboard Sunday afternoon and evening as traffic backed up not only at ATL, but at all airports feeding ATL, and all airports which had flights scheduled to depart using planes that should have left ATL.
Cause is not being discussed locally by the very close-mouthed airport officials to any local news media, but available information is that a single fire in an underground service area under the airport burned out the primary transformers (or switches and controllers to the primary transformers), but also burned either the backup transformer itself, or the switch gear allowing the backup power to be routed to alternate switchboards around the destroyed panels to backup terminal, flightline, and control stations. Fire response was reported confused, slow, and not effective this afternoon (Monday). (This was not an airplane or flightline fire, it is not clear if anyone other than the "regular" Atlanta city fire dept was called out. )
Cause is not being discussed locally by the very close-mouthed airport officials to any local news media, but available information is that a single fire in an underground service area under the airport burned out the primary transformers (or switches and controllers to the primary transformers), but also burned either the backup transformer itself, or the switch gear allowing the backup power to be routed to alternate switchboards around the destroyed panels to backup terminal, flightline, and control stations. Fire response was reported confused, slow, and not effective this afternoon (Monday). (This was not an airplane or flightline fire, it is not clear if anyone other than the "regular" Atlanta city fire dept was called out. )





RE: ATL (Atlanta) 1 Switchboard Fire + 1 Burned Backup = 11 Hour Power Outage in World's Businest Airp
The guys that signed off on this are hoping that they are now at different jobs.
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P.E. Metallurgy, Plymouth Tube
RE: ATL (Atlanta) 1 Switchboard Fire + 1 Burned Backup = 11 Hour Power Outage in World's Businest Airp
On thing for sure, the author of this spectacularly bad choice ....... had an MBA !
MJCronin
Sr. Process Engineer
RE: ATL (Atlanta) 1 Switchboard Fire + 1 Burned Backup = 11 Hour Power Outage in World's Businest Airp
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RE: ATL (Atlanta) 1 Switchboard Fire + 1 Burned Backup = 11 Hour Power Outage in World's Businest Airp
TTFN (ta ta for now)
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RE: ATL (Atlanta) 1 Switchboard Fire + 1 Burned Backup = 11 Hour Power Outage in World's Businest Airp
I would not be surprised if the original proposal was to separate a hot backup system far from the primary, but someone looked at the additional cost and decided it was worth it to their bonus to be worth the risk to everyone else.
I wonder if companies will install more longwave/thermal IR camera in such places to detect when things are heading south before they fall over and isolate the cause.
Most amazing was the apparent lack of emergency lighting through the airport and the lack of an evacuation plan.
RE: ATL (Atlanta) 1 Switchboard Fire + 1 Burned Backup = 11 Hour Power Outage in World's Businest Airp
Was that in the same city?
B.E.
You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.
RE: ATL (Atlanta) 1 Switchboard Fire + 1 Burned Backup = 11 Hour Power Outage in World's Businest Airp
Redundancy is hard.
RE: ATL (Atlanta) 1 Switchboard Fire + 1 Burned Backup = 11 Hour Power Outage in World's Businest Airp
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RE: ATL (Atlanta) 1 Switchboard Fire + 1 Burned Backup = 11 Hour Power Outage in World's Businest Airp
No secondary or backup plan to use airplane maintenance roll-up ladders to evacuate the passengers trapped in the airplanes out on the taxiways and runways. People in the planes could have been walked safely to the airport (Delta and UPS) hangers nearby.
RE: ATL (Atlanta) 1 Switchboard Fire + 1 Burned Backup = 11 Hour Power Outage in World's Businest Airp
As always, doing correctly costs money.
Which you would think that a very large airport would grasp.
What did this cost Delta? $200mil? and the airport lost a lot also.
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P.E. Metallurgy, Plymouth Tube
RE: ATL (Atlanta) 1 Switchboard Fire + 1 Burned Backup = 11 Hour Power Outage in World's Businest Airp
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The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which depends on a feature that isn't included in this version of Windows.
RE: ATL (Atlanta) 1 Switchboard Fire + 1 Burned Backup = 11 Hour Power Outage in World's Businest Airp
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/12/18/atl...
It looks like it was distribution level equipment that was involved, probably 25 kV - if I remember what Georgia Power uses.
Bowers at Georgia Power told ABC’s Good Morning America that seven power cables supply the airport from two sources through the single tunnel. The failed switchgear sits on the bottom of the tunnel and damaged all the cables, he said.
A single tunnel - that suggests what a Monday morning quarterback could say - that is your problem!
I'm sure the airport folks (via their consultant) and the Georgia Power folks had previous discussions on this before the design was approved.
RE: ATL (Atlanta) 1 Switchboard Fire + 1 Burned Backup = 11 Hour Power Outage in World's Businest Airp
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RE: ATL (Atlanta) 1 Switchboard Fire + 1 Burned Backup = 11 Hour Power Outage in World's Businest Airp
RE: ATL (Atlanta) 1 Switchboard Fire + 1 Burned Backup = 11 Hour Power Outage in World's Businest Airp
Dan - Owner
http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com
RE: ATL (Atlanta) 1 Switchboard Fire + 1 Burned Backup = 11 Hour Power Outage in World's Businest Airp
One article I saw did list the load at 35MVA. Clearly they don't have a single MV/LV transformer. What I'm used to seeing where there is any concern for redundancy are double ended LV substations with a main-tie-main and redundant feeds for the MV side. There are two or more MV switchgear rooms, widely separated and fed from different directions. That way there is no single ATS to fail, no single switchgear to fail, etc. that could have wide impact.
RE: ATL (Atlanta) 1 Switchboard Fire + 1 Burned Backup = 11 Hour Power Outage in World's Businest Airp
RE: ATL (Atlanta) 1 Switchboard Fire + 1 Burned Backup = 11 Hour Power Outage in World's Businest Airp
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