DENVER — The cause of a widespread power outage at Denver International Airport that triggered a ground stop for nearly two hours and caused headaches for thousands of passengers earlier Wednesday could take days to determine, officials told Denver7.
The "power incident" was first reported at around 9:20 a.m. Wednesday, and it wasn't long before users took to social media with questions and concerns about the lack of communication from the airport about what exactly was going on.
Though "some of the airport's power was restored quickly," several critical airport systems — including the trains to the concourses — remained without power for "roughly an hour," before power was restored shortly after 11 a.m., according to a DIA spokesperson.
DIA officials posted on social media that the airport's maintenance and operations teams "worked as quickly as possible to assist passengers and restore power, but did not initially have an estimated time for when power would be fully restored.
The "equipment outage" then prompted a ground stop from the FAA at 9:54 a.m. which lasted until 11:30 a.m.
"Once Xcel Energy restored the airport’s power, DEN teams worked to alleviate backups on train platforms and lines at security checkpoints," the DIA spokespesron said, adding airport operations were fully back to normal by around noon.
- Watch Denver7's preliminary coverage of the power outage in the video player below:
Flooded with questions about what they could do to get to the flights on time, DIA officials suggested that impacted travelers reach out directly to their airlines.
Airline tracking website FlightAware showed over 300 flights had been delayed by the time the ground stop had been lifted, and about six had been canceled. By 4 p.m. Wednesday, impacts from the power outage were still being felt by airlines with over 500 delays and 9 cancellations.
"I've never heard of anything like this before, and even a pilot telling us through the speaker that we haven't heard anything like this," said Daralene Jones, who was traveling home to Florida.
In a statement, a DIA spokesperson said the outage "originated and was isolated to one Xcel substation." The official told Denver7 the energy company was now conducting a full system assessment to determine the root cause of the outage. "Identifying a cause could take a few days," the spokesperson wrote.
That's no excuse for Brian Dutzarn, whom Denver7 caught up with after the chaos had subsided.
"It just seems the way it's just laid out, it's a really inefficient process compared to — especially — to a lot of other airports in the country, he said.
DIA is no stranger to problems with the trains. Last June, scheduled maintenance caused major passenger backups and train delays.
The airport has been considering alternatives to the trains for years now, including a pedestrian bridge from Terminal A to Terminal B and from B to C, so that in the instance of problems with the trains, passengers could still get to their gates.
"DEN continues to explore alternative energy solutions via a request for information (RFI) from the private sector so that we can ensure greater redundancy and meet our growing energy needs,” the airport's CEO, Phil Washington, said in a statement later Wednesday.
Denver7's Adria Iraheta contributed to this report.
Related coverage:
- Train track maintenance causes delays at Denver International Airport Tuesday night
- Mechanical issue stops trains at Denver International Airport
- Denver7 takes passengers' concerns to DIA officials after train delays Tuesday night
- Denver International Airport to shut down concourse trains overnight for six days in February
