Officials don’t know
why runway lights failed

The 50-minute outage Sunday
delayed flights at Kahului Airport

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By Gary T. Kubota
gkubota@starbulletin.com

KAHULUI >> State and federal officials are expected to resume work today to find the cause of a lighting failure at the two runways at Kahului Airport.

The runway lights were out between 7 p.m. and 7:50 p.m. Sunday, delaying five interisland flights and hundreds of passengers.

Maui Airports Manager Jon Sakamoto said state and federal officials are prepared to switch within minutes to a manual system if the lights fail again.

"We have a backup plan," Sakamoto said. "I don't see a problem ... because we know how to handle the emergency should it arise. It should be fine."

Sakamoto said a state contractor and federal workers conducted a number of tests yesterday to find the problem.

"They've tried all sorts of tests and they haven't resolved the problem," he said. "They come up with possible solutions, but no definite cause has been identified."

Sakamoto said the lighting failure could have stemmed from any number of problems, including a short circuit or a switch failure.

"Troubleshooting the whole system is going to take some time," Sakamoto said.

Normally, officials at the federal air traffic control tower at Kahului Airport have the power to turn on and raise or lower the intensity of runway lighting.

Sakamoto said the lighting failed for a couple of minutes close to 7 p.m. Saturday, but corrected itself.

He said that when the lighting failed Sunday night, officials initially hoped it would right itself again, but then had to call in a contractor who manually switched on the lighting system.

The outage delayed the departure of one flight each for Hawaiian and Aloha airlines and the arrival of two Hawaiian flights and one Aloha flight into Maui.

Sakamoto said the Aloha arrival was delayed for more than 80 minutes.

Daniel Leimbacher, a passenger and government attorney from Tahiti, said he was disappointed that when the passengers arrived at the airport, no one was at the terminal to apologize for the flight delay.

But Leimbacher said passengers were happy to be on the ground again.

He said his bags had arrived on an earlier flight and apparently some items were stolen before he got to them.

"It was a consequence of the plane delay," he said.