Miami International Airport's fuel farm, which supplies fuel to all aircraft at MIA, suffered significant damage from a major second-alarm fire Wednesday night. The farm's fuel tank pumps caught fire because of an undetermined malfunction at approximately 11:00 p.m. More than 40 Miami-Dade Fire Rescue units responded to the fire and fully extinguished it at 1:20 a.m.
The fire's damage rendered MIA's underground hydrant fueling system inoperative on Thursday, requiring the use of tanker trucks for aircraft fueling. Fueling aircraft by tanker versus hydrant pumps requires about twice the time and therefore resulted in major flight delays and cancellations on Thursday. Hub carrier American Airlines, for example, cancelled about 100 outbound flights.
We expect hydrant fueling to be restored on Friday when temporary fuel pumps procured and delivered from Central Florida are installed Thursday night. These pumps are currently on site and will be incorporated into the system so that into-plane fueling can resume.
We have determined that it may be several weeks before the 14 pumps damaged by the fire will be repaired. Until the fueling operation has been fully inspected, and because there is ample fuel on site, the fuel supply from Port Everglades to MIA has been temporarily shut down at least until Friday. The power supply to the pumping system is inoperative and will require repair or generator power. Damage debris also needs to be cleared from the site. The entire fuel supply on site has been inspected and cleared for use.
The ETA for partial system restoration is now 0300 on Friday, March 25th.
