Runway lights and the Air Traffic Control Tower at the CJIA, Timehri were up and running late Tuesday night after shutting down for a few hours after lightning and thunderstorms hit a transformer and the stand-by generator developed radiator problems.
Head of the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority Zulficar Mohammed told Stabroek News yesterday that the affected GPL transformer powered both locations. He said the incident occurred some time after 2 pm on Tuesday and the generator immediately kick-started but then it too shut down after it developed radiator problems. Mohammed said this forced a decision to shut down the airport preventing a Sky Ser-vices aircraft from landing on time and affecting other scheduled flights. He said even though the aircraft was preparing for landing, it was not very close to the runway so its pilot ascended a bit, circled and then eventually landed.
Mohammed refuted claims in the Kaieteur News that the aircraft had almost run off the runway as the navigation aid was still working and aided the aircraft in landing. He also refuted claims that suggestions had been made to use the head lamps from vehicles to light the runway. Mohammed said the situation was rectified some time after 11 pm and the airport declared opened thereafter.
He said Macorp staff was deployed and the radiator from the generator has since been removed and arrangements made to have it fixed. He also acknowledged that the generator is old and would be replaced in another couple months.
Meanwhile, the shutdown affected Caribbean Airlines (CA) and Zoom flights on Tuesday night which were not able to land until the wee hours of yesterday morning. Caribbean Airlines Manager Carlton Defour said yesterday afternoon that everything was back to normal but that flights to Guyana had been diverted and/or postponed.
He said the airport reopened some time after 2 am and CA flights were able to come in and were back on schedule. Even though some persons who came from Miami had to stay at the Piarco International Airport in Trinidad for hours, Defour said there was no major passenger frustration.
Stabroek News understands too that a Zoom airline flight coming from Toronto was forced to stop over in Trinidad and arrived after 2 am.
However, Delta Airlines was not affected and was on normal schedule for its flights early yesterday morning.