Athabasca County's regional airport fuelling system was taken offline for four days after malfunctioning due to extreme temperatures after Christmas. The Avgas 100 low lead fuelling system at the Athabasca Regional Airport was shut down Dec.
Athabasca County's regional airport fuelling system was taken offline for four days after malfunctioning due to extreme temperatures after Christmas.
The Avgas 100 low lead fuelling system at the Athabasca Regional Airport was shut down Dec. 29 and was returned to normal operations Jan. 2, according to Athabasca County communications co-ordinator Karl Kopan.
Kopan said the self-serve system allows pilots to pay for fuel by fleet accounts, or by credit and debit.
“The system is electronic and has some small batteries in the payment terminal. Due to the extreme cold these batteries froze and caused the system to malfunction,” he said. “We went out and took a look at it, and county staff elected to take the system out of service temporarily until the weather conditions got better and reliability could be improved.”
Kopan said this situation has not arisen before, and while electronics have come a long ways in terms of reliability, “everything is tested to its limits” when temperatures fall as they did in late December.
“It's much like sensors act up in your vehicle during times of extreme cold,” he said. “The electronics in the fueling system didn't operate to their normal capacity.”
Kopan said the airport sent out a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) warning pilots the system was down, and airport administration is “hopeful” there was no impact on pilots that were flying at the time.
He added the county's airport manager will likely look into what caused the system failure, and will see what can be done to prevent it in the future.
