Georgia Power has until mid-January to provide state utility regulators with a detailed explanation of how an underground electrical fire darkened Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport for 11 hours on Dec. 17, sparking a disruptive domino effect across the international air traffic system.
The Georgia Public Safety Commission posed 20 questions to determine the exact sequence of events that led up to the blaze, which Georgia Power says may have originated with the failure of utility-owned switch gear, located in an underground electrical facility. Because the fire occurred adjacent to redundant circuit cables and switching mechanisms, the airport's electrical system was unable to switch to alternative power feeds.