VietNamNet Bridge - The incident at the Ho Chi Minh City Area Control Centre (AACC Ho Chi Minh) at Tan Son Nhat Airport on Nov. 20 was an extremely serious technical failure that has never occurred in the history of the Vietnamese aviation history, an official said at a press conference on November 21.

Passengers at Tan Son Nhat Airport on Nov. 20.

According to the Head of the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV), Lai Xuan Thanh, the power outage, which took place from 11:05 am to 11:40 am and disabled the radar system controlling air traffic, affected at least 54 flights within the city’s flight information region (FIR) at that time.

Some of these flights had to return to their departure airports or land at nearby airports, while a number of other flights had to be delayed, he stated, adding that economic losses caused by the incident for the aviation sector are yet to be calculated.

The CAAV leader said the initial reason for this incident was the breakdown of all of the centre’s three uninterruptible power supply (UPS) devices. Two of them resumed operation by 15:40 pm the same day, while the remaining have operated normally since midday of November 21.

According to the official, when the incident occurred, the Southern Region Air Traffic Services Company immediately took control of all planes within the Ho Chi Minh City FIR to ensure safety.

The CAAV asked the Vietnam Flight Management Corporation to suspend two people from the Ho Chi Minh City Area Control Centre for investigation.

TTXVN/VNN