Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 4) — The Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) on Thursday said preliminary data on the power outage that occurred at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 3 during Labor Day is expected next week as authorities continue to investigate what caused the incident.
“There are areas right now that are being investigated where we think the fault might have originated,” MIAA officer-in-charge Bryan Co told CNN Philippines’ The Source.
\”So as we speak, the investigators are going around our facilities… so that by next week they can give us preliminary data on what happened on May 1,” Co added
An inter-agency meeting chaired by the Department of Transportation was held this week in relation to the May 1 power outage that affected thousands of passengers at the NAIA Terminal 3.
Co said they already have theories as to what caused the problem, but a technical study is still needed. The possibility of sabotage is still not off the table, he noted.
The MIAA official said the agencies will meet again next week to get the initial assessment from investigators and to know when the final report will be available.
The May 1 incident came four months after the New Year’s Day fiasco at the same airport terminal.
Co explained that the two incidents were different, since the first one involved an issue in the facility of the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines, while the latest one was an issue with NAIA’s facility.
During this week’s power outage, NAIA Terminal 3 relied on its power generators, which could only had handle 30% of the terminal’s functions.
Co said authorities have been working on addressing this problem since last year.
“Since last year, we were already in the process of determining how we can procure additional gen sets because we need to know first the capacity that we need to buy, which systems we need to prioritize,” he said.
Aside from this, there are also upgrade programs being implemented at Terminal 3, Co added.
