Ercan Airport was closed to air traffic this morning for two and a half hours following a power failure, Kibris Postasi reports.
Following a power cut, the generator which powers feed for the meteorological forecasts failed to kick in, leading to a halt in flights. A total of six planes were affected by the malfunction, and a plane from Istanbul was forced to land in Adana.
President of Air Traffic Control, Cem Kapısız, told Yeniduzen that due to an electrical phase shift, two out of the three working phases at the airport dropped to two phases. He mentioned that the generator supplying power to the old runway and the meteorology building did not activate, and meteorological information could not be transmitted to the control tower for two and a half hours.
He said that the issue could be resolved within a day or two although he did not specify how or what it was, he also underlined the need for Ercan to have uninterrupted power.
Kapısız said: ‘We’ve been saying this for years, and we said it when the airport opened. We were saying, ‘You can’t open the airport without guaranteeing it’“. He mentioned that the airport was opened with the ambition to fulfil the order they received.
“The problem was addressed last week only by finding a temporary solution, intervening at the points where the problem occurred, and neglecting the rest“, he said.
Kapısız stated, ‘Last time, employees were accused of sabotage by Mr. Erhan Arıklı. If there is sabotage here, aviation in North Cyprus is being sabotaged by the state and capital“, he said.
Meanwhile, Mustafa Sofi, the Director of the Civil Aviation Department, stated in an announcement to the Turkish News Agency Cyprus (TAK) that six planes, four due for takeoff and two for landing, were affected by the halt in air traffic. He mentioned that the issue was resolved as of 08:00, and flights returned to normal.