On October 23, a critical component of our Casper/Natrona County International Airport (C/NCIA) infrastructure, the Air Traffic Control Tower (ATCT), lost power. After 12 hours, power was fully restored, with minimal impacts to flights during the outage.
At C/NCIA, power outages occur like anywhere else. Typically, our power outages go mostly unnoticed, since backup power through generators turns on to keep operations running smoothly. Unfortunately, while the generator operated as expected, the underground electrical lines did not, and power remained out. This triggered an all-hands-on-deck to find the cause of the backup generator’s failure and get power restored.
Fortunately, if the ATCT does lose power, Denver International Airport (DIA) can temporarily take over airfield management and air traffic control operations to ensure flights proceed as usual. This time, when the control tower lost power, it affected an essential weather observation station that DIA cannot temporarily manage.
Our 12-person maintenance team – along with Rocky Mountain Power, Modern Electric, and FAA staff – worked together to address the outage. The temporary solution involved an airport maintenance truck equipped with a generator and 80 feet of extension cords to connect essential systems to a power source.
In the meantime, our staff and utility partners investigated the reason behind the generator line’s failure. After digging up and examining the electrical line between the generator and the ATCT, it was determined that an underground cable with exposed wire was the reason the ATCT had no power. After the cable was identified as the problem, our team and partners collaborated on removing and replacing it as quickly as possible to fully restore the ATCT.
We are extremely grateful for the hours that our maintenance team, Modern Electric, Rocky Mountain Power, and the FAA staff spent working on restoring power to the ATCT. In recognition of their quick thinking and problem-solving, we awarded our team the Innovation Award for their creative use of extension cords and a pickup truck.
