Iris Tien

Atlanta’s Airport Disaster Sounds Aviation Alarm Bell

By John Donovan  |  December 19, 2017

When the lights went out at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on Sunday, Dec. 20, 2017, darkness fell quickly over the world of commercial aviation.

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Location, Location, Location

“I think that [problem] was kind of highlighted in this instance. [Backup systems] often are located in the same spot,” says Iris Tien, a professor at Georgia Tech who earned her doctorate in civil systems engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. “This just showed this might not be the best design system.” 

The backup system — or at least the “redundant circuit cables” part of it that Georgia Power mentions — may have been located in the same area as the main system for a simple reason, Tien suggests. Rather than finding or building a new, safe spot in the sprawling Atlanta complex away from the main electrical system, rather than laying the requisite cables and buying all the equipment that would enable it to run on its own, the architects of the system went, instead, with the easier and, yes, cheaper route, never envisioning a fire of this magnitude.

The people who built the system at Hartsfield-Jackson airport — which has many of the same characteristics of airport systems throughout the world — evidently separated the connectivity part of the system correctly, so that each part (main and backup) could operate independently, says Tien. They just didn’t separate the parts of the system enough geographically.

And cost, always a factor, might well have been the reason.

The Problem with Aging Infrastructure

The Hartsfield-Jackson blackout illustrates what many people — from presidents past and present to doomsday predictors — have been harping on for years. This U.S. infrastructure, from its bridges and highways to its electrical grid and, yes, its airports, needs work. Some say a lot of work. Now.

“I would say that, looking beyond just airports, which are kind of known to be aging, there hasn’t been sufficient investment [in infrastructure],” Tien says. “For airports in particular, that’s also the case.”

According to a report released in March by the Airports Council International – North America, U.S. airports need some $100 billion in infrastructure upgrades over the next five years. That’s a 32 percent increase in what they needed just two years ago. That highlights 1) Just how quickly existing infrastructure is aging and, 2) just how quickly it must be upgraded to stay in good repair, make way for growth and new technology and to stay competitive with other countries.