Johannesburg – The Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) has revealed that the disruption caused by a faulty valve that prevented aircraft refueling at OR Tambo International Airport affected 177 flights and 22 073 passengers.
In a statement, ACSA said it “unreservedly apologises to all stakeholders and members of the public” for the flight disruptions at OR Tambo airport on Monday, (9 December 2024).
The disruptions occurred between 09:05 and 12:35. When the fuel valve was manually opened, refuelling restarted at 13:01.
RELATED: OR Tambo Airport: Faulty Valve Causes Refueling Problems, Flights Grounded – The Bulrushes
The refuelling technical challenges have since been resolved, and operations were fully restored.
RELATED: OR Tambo Airport: ACSA Says Fuel Challenges That Grounded Flights Resolved – The Bulrushes
“This disruption directly impacted approximately 177 flights and 22 073 passengers between 09:05 and 13:01 when flights resumed,” ACSA said.
“The knock-on effect of this four-hour delay impacted a further number of flights and passengers, over the 13:00 to 23:00 period when the backlog was cleared.
“The total impact on the ACSA network was 483 flights and 49 429 passengers as well as 31 flights cancelled for the day.
“This took place against an estimated total number of 1 500 flights and 110 000 passengers which are normally processed through ACSA’s network daily.”
ACSA said about a third of the flights were impacted and about half the daily passengers were impacted.
“This disruption was due to a drive shaft that sheared (or shattered) as shown in the picture below,” the statement said.
Explaining in detail, ACSA said the damaged drive shaft resulted in a valve malfunction which prevented the pumping of jet fuel from the storage tank.
The repair work was completed on Monday at 13:00 restoring the system to normal operating levels.
“An emergency valve replacement is being co-ordinated to ensure continued reliability of that component,” the statement said.
“The OR Tambo International Airport Fuel infrastructure has an extensive approved capital programme involving refurbishment and capacity-related projects which are at various stages of implementation.
“The estimated value of the projects is R1.5 billion.”
ACSA said since the last incident 24 months ago when the main fuel valve failed, it was subsequently replaced and operations restored.
“The lessons learnt from this implementation was that the whole system needed to be overhauled,” said the statement.
“This took a long time with the regulatory requirements including Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) approval.”
ACSA said the bypass also required the Approved Inspection Authority (AIA) sign-off, “both of which took time”.
During mid-2024, the airport implemented a tank configuration modification to allow the airport to receive larger volumes of fuel from the coastal pipeline.
ACSA revealed other projects being implemented, which it said will improve the reliability and provide redundancy of the fuel system.
The projects include:
- A new twenty-inch jet fuel line which is 1.8km long from the tank farm to the aprons for which construction will start in March 2025 and will be completed by March 2026.
- An additional redundancy through creation of a bypass mechanism, for which designs are completed and is about 9 metres long, is currently being implemented to be completed by February 2025.
The Board of ACSA will be conducting a thorough investigation into this incident and produce a report that indicates the root causes of the incident and take appropriate action to ensure a final solution as the full projects of new and replacement jet fuel line are under implementation.
ACSA said a preliminary incident report was being finalised subject to the laboratory analysis of the metal pieces by the Engineering Team, to establish the reason for the breakage of the drive shaft.
This will form the basis of the detailed investigation conducted by the ACSA Board.
“I am happy to report that the refuelling challenges have been resolved and the airport has been operating as normal since yesterday afternoon,” explains ACSA CEO Mpumi Mpofu.
“The operational backlog that resulted from this issue has been successfully cleared and flights are back on schedule.”
ACSA said media reports of a disaster unfolding at OR Tambo International Airport related to the refuelling hitch was overstated.
“We are ready to receive tourists, family, businesspeople and travellers to our beautiful country and to connect,” ACSA said.
“We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused by this situation and thank you for your understanding and patience.”
