By Emmanuel T. Erediano
[email protected]
Variety News Staff
THE runway lights at Francisco C. Ada/Saipan International Airport went out Wednesday night, prompting the Commonwealth Ports Authority to temporarily halt aircraft arrivals and leading the board to approve an emergency expenditure of funds.
Newly elected CPA Board Chairman Bart Jackson said the airport experienced “what appeared to be a maintenance issue and the runway lights were non-functional.”
“Clearly, you can’t operate an airport at night without runway lights, so we had to temporarily halt all arrivals until we could complete the repairs,” Jackson said. “Our staff worked 24 hours through the night to restore the lights. As of this morning, the lights are back on, and we are fully operational. We were also able to perform some preventive maintenance, so we are confident this will not happen again in the near future.”
During Thursday’s board meeting, Vice Chairman Antonio B. Cabrera added an emergency notice and proposed an emergency expenditure to the agenda. The board unanimously approved the measure.
CPA Executive Director Esther Ada confirmed the lights were restored Thursday morning. She said the emergency expenditure was necessary because CPA had to hire an external contractor to assist in the repairs and acquire supplies needed for the restoration.
According to Ada’s emergency notice, Saipan Airport Manager James Guerrero received a call Wednesday reporting that the runway lights “went offline.” He immediately mobilized the technical crew to troubleshoot the issue. After failed attempts to reset and replace the transformer internally, CPA determined that external assistance was required to complete the repairs.
Ada’s notice stated that the emergency work included services from Elliot Systems, which was able to mobilize immediately to troubleshoot and repair the runway lights.
Emmanuel “Arnold” Erediano has a bachelor of science degree in Journalism. He started his career as police beat reporter. Loves to cook. Eats death threats for breakfast.
