The Board of Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) will be conducting a thorough investigation into the incident leading to refuelling disruptions at OR Tambo International Airport (ORTIA).

The Board will produce a report that indicates the root causes of the incident and take appropriate action to ensure a final solution while new and replacement jet fuel lines are being installed.

A preliminary incident report is being finalised subject to laboratory analysis of metal pieces by the engineering team to establish the reason for drive shaft breakage. This will form the basis of the detailed investigation conducted by the Board.

This was announced by Acsa CEO Mpumi Mpofu who said the technical refuelling challenges have been resolved and the airport has been operating as normal since yesterday afternoon (Tuesday, December 10).

“The operational backlog that resulted from this issue has been successfully cleared and flights are back on schedule.”

Impact of the disruption

A statement by Acsa highlighted that the disruption directly impacted approximately 177 flights and 22 073 passengers between 09h05 and 13h01 on Monday (December 9).

The knock-on effect of this delay impacted additional flights and passengers over the 13h00-23h00 period. The total impact on the Acsa network affected 483 flights and 49 429 passengers as well as 31 flights cancelled for the day.

An estimated total of 1 500 flights and 110 000 passengers are normally processed through Acsa’s network daily. Therefore, about a third of the flights were impacted and about half the daily passengers were impacted during the disruption this week.

Acsa said the disruption was due to a drive shaft that sheared or shattered. This prevented pumping of jet fuel from storage tanks to the aprons for aircraft refuelling.

“The repair work was conducted in compliance with rigorous safety procedures. This encompasses depressurisation, drainage of fuel, purging the system of hydrocarbons and associated gases and the implementation of specialised rigging to ensure safe completion of work,” Acsa explained in a statement.

Emergency valve replacement is underway to ensure continued reliability of that component.

Aaron Munetsi, CEO of the Airlines Association of Southern Africa (AASA), said: “Although AASA appreciates the efforts being made by Acsa to restore fuel supplies at what is Southern Africa’s busiest air travel and air cargo gateway, we urge it to expedite the installation of the back-up bypass line that was promised as part of the fuel supply resilience plan after the previous main supply valve failure in December 2022.”

AASA expressed “grave concern” about the negative impact on airline operations, including lengthy delays and cancelled flights.

What has been done to date

Acsa pointed out that ORTIA’s fuel infrastructure has an extensive approved capital programme involving refurbishment and capacity-related projects at various stages of implementation.

The estimated value of the projects is R1.5 billion (€79.9m). The last incident was 24 months ago when the main fuel valve failed and was replaced to restore operations.

Among the lessons learnt by Acsa from this incident was that the entire system needed to be overhauled but there were delays due to “regulatory requirements including environmental impact assessment approval. The bypass also required Approved Inspection Authority sign-off,” explained Acsa.

In mid-2024, ORTIA implemented tank configuration modification to receive larger volumes of fuel from the coastal pipeline. Additional projects being implemented to improve the fuel system include:

• Construction of a 1.8km jet fuel line from the tank farm to the aprons set to begin in March 2025 and scheduled for completion by March 2026.
• Additional redundancy through a 9m bypass mechanism currently being implemented for completion by February 2025.