Photos show damage from Hartsfield electrical explosion

CLAYTON COUNTY, Ga. — Channel 2 Action News obtained exclusive photos showing the maintenance shop where a small electrical explosion forced the partial evacuation of Hartsfield-Jackson Airport's D Concourse Tuesday morning.

The photos clearly show scorch marks on the wall underneath several electrical conduits.  No one was injured in the incident.

Hartsfield-Jackson General Manager Louis Miller described the explosion as more of a loud electrical pop.  It cut power and air conditioning to most of Concourse D.

"We spent the night testing everything out there," said Miller.  "They went through the duct work, what could've caused it, where it was at.  Moisture possibly getting into some of the areas."

He said his crews worked until early Wednesday morning to repair the damage and get everything up and running again.

"They just went through it and this morning, they signed off on it and said we're good to go," said Miller.

The incident caused 35 flight delays and two cancellations.  The situation was over within 90 minutes.

Miller said when they were still trying to figure out what had happened, they made the call to go ahead and evacuate half of Concourse D by bus over to Concourse E.  He said they did that for the safety of the passengers.

"As soon as they found out there had been some problems, they determined the best thing to do was to evacuate because of the uncertainty," Miller said.

Miller gave his staff the grade of B for their performance, and he said, they'll do an after-action review of their response to the incident.

"If it happens again, do we do something differently to minimize the impact or exactly what we can do, but we were pleased with the results of what happened yesterday," he said.

WSBTV