'Locked gates, long waits, fire smoke': Inside Mumbai Airport T1 short circuit fallout; blaze put out in 3 hours

MUMBAI: Fire broke out at Terminal 1 of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) in Mumbai due to a short circuit in the electric power house at around 6.10pm on Thursday. The fire was extinguished in about three hours.

"The fire broke out due to a short circuit in heavy-duty cables and panels at the airport. The fire originated in the trays of heavy-duty cables and panels that supply power and was extinguished by 9.20pm. No fire related injuries were reported," said Ravindra Ambulgekar, chief fire officer of Mumbai Fire Brigade.

CSMIA spokesperson confirmed that a minor fire was reported at Terminal 1 due to a short circuit at 18:10 hours, but stated that the fire was immediately brought under control by the emergency response teams within minutes and that airport operations were unaffected.

Airport sources, however, claimed that the incident occured near aerobridge A 7 baggage makeup area, and aero bridges four to eight were closed as smoke had engulfed the whole area and operations such as the DIGI yatra, CCTV cameras, and telecom network were affected. Security personnel started manual checking of the passengers to clear them for entry inside the terminal.

The Mumbai Fire Brigade and internal fire brigade of CSMIA were engaged in controlling the fire and the situation was brought under control. The fire was brought fully under control in about one hour. However, no flight delay was reported following the incident. Some took to social media and complained that there was a major system failure at Mumbai airport and that the security gates were locked while passengers and planes were kept waiting.

According to the fire brigade, however, the fire was confined to ceiling level electric tray, electric wiring, electric cables, electric installations, electric panels etc. at ground floor electric power house of ground-plus-one-floored terminal structure.


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