News / Call for backup to prevent 999 services disruption
THERE are calls for a backup to be put in place to ensure there is no repeat of yesterday’s “completely unacceptable” communications blackout that left emergency services in the islands seriously compromised for several hours.
BT explained that a blown fuse at its Wideford Hill radio transmitter in Orkney was to blame for knocking out radio and telephone links for five hours on Saturday.
It left Shetland Coastguard without contact to the mainland and NHS Shetland had to advise patients requiring medical attention to attend the Gilbert Bain Hospital in person.
The problem resulted in Sumburgh Airport closing at lunchtime, leading to the cancellation of 11 flights.
With flights back on schedule on Sunday, a spokeswoman for HIAL said that five extra inbound and four extra outbound flights had been laid on to clear the backlog of passengers whose travel plans had been disrupted.
HIAL’s spokeswoman said Sumburgh had only got back to normal at 6.45pm on Saturday after BT resolved the problem affecting phone lines.
“Yesterday’s unfortunate closure was due to the islands phone line issue impacting on radar connections,” she said.
Shetland MSP Tavish Scott said it was not good enough for the islands to be left without emergency communications.
“If the reason was a blown fuse at a BT Orkney transmitter then why was there no back-up?” he asked.
“The NHS advised people not to phone 999 but instead go to Lerwick’s Gilbert Bain Hospital. The coastguard had no radio or phone communications to the Scottish mainland and flights into Sumburgh were suspended.”
Scott continued: “Shetland was in short cut off because of a fuse. This is the twenty first century. There has to be a back up.
“Shetland will expect a full explanation from BT. We will want to know what the emergency services and the NHS are now doing to ensure they do not depend on a communications system that failed.”
He added: “There are major questions to answer. I will also be raising this with the Scottish Government given their responsibilities for emergency service cover.”
BT apologised for the break in service on Saturday. On Sunday a company spokesman said: “The outage was caused by two blown rectifiers, not, as Mr Scott alleges, ‘Shetland was cut off because of a fuse’. Why this happened is under investigation.”
Meanwhile, James Stewart of the Facebook campaign for fairer flight prices, criticised HIAL. He pointed out that £17 of the fare each passenger pays on flights to and from Shetland goes to HIAL and that customers deserved a better response than Saturday’s “please speak to your airline”.
He said: “The customer service HIAL should be aiming for is a long way off and it seems HIAL are more interested in legal proceedings against local authorities than actually fulfilling their purpose, which is to provide a suitable airport facility for the island residents and tourists.”
Stewart said HIAL ought to consider “where £16 million of their revenue comes from”.
“Without passengers HIAL would not exist and it’s time they explained themselves to the public. The campaign would like to praise Loganair for trying their best yesterday to provide accommodation and onward travel where possible to those affected and suggest that they recover their expenses from HIAL in the aggressive way HIAL seem fond of using.”
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