Palace: Thorough probe of Philippine airspace shutdown ongoing

(Eagle News) — The Palace has said a thorough probe of the shutdown of Philippine airspace over the weekend is being conducted by the appropriate agencies.

Sunday’s glitch at the Air Traffic Management Center at 9:49 a.m. led to the cancelation, diversion, and delay of almost 300 flights.

The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines said normal operations were restored at 7:45 p.m.

CAAP Director General Manuel Tamayo had said the glitch ensued after one of the power sources failed as a result of the power outage, and “both the supply from the commercial and standby generator eventually did not power the system.”

“Supposedly, there should be no problem because it is supposed to be fail-safe due to two UPS systems. But for one reason or another, the other UPS did not come online so troubleshooting had to be done,” he said.

He said one of the blowers of the uninterrupted power supply that ensures the entire system works, however, conked out.

“Unfortunately, there was already damage in the affected system and the worst was that it affected our VSAT,” he said, referring to the very small aperture terminal that “serves as a receiver for the satellite or communication navigation and all the necessary data that we require..”