An electrical fire caused Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport to go dark on Sunday. People around the world were asking about the cause after the resulting power outage grounded all incoming and outgoing flights.
Newly released pictures show the damage and Georgia Power crews working to restore power from inside the airport.
Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed held a press conference late Sunday night saying an underground fire at a Georgia Power substation caused the outage.
He said that the firefighters responded sometime after 12:30 p.m. after being alerted to the fire, which was intense.
“Because of the intensity of the heat, it took approximately one-and-a-half to two hours to make sure that fire was adequately contained,” Reed said.
RELATED: Timeline of Atlanta airport blackout
Even after the fire was extinguished, crews had to wait for the fumes to clear out before they could begin making assessments and repairs.
“Georgia Power’s personnel could not access the tunnels until we made sure that the fire, which was an electrical fire, was completely put out…Once they were able to access the tunnels, they were able to make an assessment,” he said.
While Reed did not go into detail about what caused the fire he said “there is no evidence to suggest that the fire was caused deliberately.”
Hartsfield-Jackson does have a backup system but Reed said that was damaged in the fire.
“Because of the intensity of the fire, the switch which accesses the redundant system was damaged,” leaving both systems damaged, he said.
A Georgia Power representative said the fire damaged multiple parts of their system, leading to the prolonged outage.
