Redmond Airport power outage, unstaffed control tower lead to 3 canceled incoming flights, outgoing impacts

'Kind of unique - something we haven't seen before,' airport director says

REDMOND, Ore. (KTVZ) – Two power outages at the Redmond Municipal Airport late Friday night shut down the automated weather station incoming pilots depend on for required weather reports, leading to cancellation of three late-night arrivals and also affected departing flights Saturday morning, an official said.

The airport has backup power for the terminal and other facilities at the city-owned airport, but there is no such backup for the Automated Weather Observation System (AWOS), which automatically updates weather conditions every 10 minutes. That system is owned by the National Weather Service, Airport Director Zachary Bass said Saturday.

Pacific Power spokesman Simon Gutierrez said "a problem with a cable" apparently caused the power outage, which lasted for about an hour.

The power outage and resulting AWOS outage have happened before, Bass explained - but the “uniqueness” this time was that a backup option was not available: an air traffic controller who is certified to read the weather information to incoming pilots from the control tower.

And that’s because the FAA-contracted control tower at Redmond Airport was at “ATC Zero,” meaning it was unstaffed, as it has been on weekends for the last few months, amid a nationwide shortage of air traffic controllers, the airport official said.

“That puts us in a quandary,” Bass said. “Wait for the power to come back on or find someone who is certified and can read the weather (report)” to pilots.

Without meeting that weather report requirement, three late-night flights could not take off for Redmond, which Bass said was “kind of unique – something we haven’t seen before.”

NewsChannel 21 heard Saturday morning from one delayed air traveler in San Francisco who said, "There's a whole plane-load of us trying to get back to Bend."

The outages were over and situation resolved by Saturday morning. But since those three planes didn’t come into Redmond, they were unavailable for morning outbound flights. Bass said he was unaware if any departures were canceled, more likely delayed. He also noted that departures from RDM were not affected by the outage, as the AWOS situation relates to incoming flights only.