A loose fuse carrier sparked the problem that plunged part of the John Smith's Stadium into darkness shortly before last Friday’s Giants game.
Now Gareth Davies, managing director of KSDL which operates the stadium, has explained how his team of engineers dealt with the power failure ahead of the Giants/Catalan match which ended in defeat for the home team.
Mr Davies said the power failure happened at 6.50pm when there was a power loss in the Revell Ward stand.
Click below to see parts of the John Smith's Stadium in darkness
The loss came at the most inconvenient time imaginable as the Sky TV cameras geared up to capture a tense clash for a place in the semi-finals of the Super League play-off.
Mr Davies said he was entertaining guests in one of the boxes when the lights went out.
“The lights went on to emergency lighting and I went to check what was happening,” he said. “Within minutes I was down there with my team.
“We identified the problem and got a specialist engineer in and had a conversation with match officials telling them what we thought the problem was – a fuse carrier had worked itself loose and that led to it tripping itself as it should to avoid something worse.
“This affected the Revell Ward stand and the two floodlights adjoining it.
“Also the roadway lights outside the stadium which are serviced by the electrical transformer in question.
“No other part of the stadium was affected at any point. The match officials subsequently decided that the match could proceed with only two floodlights operational.
“However, they also had an appraisal from us that there was a good chance that all power would be restored within a short period of time if, as suspected, the issue wasn’t as significant as it might be. Full power was restored at 8.21pm.”
Mr Davies added: “A joint decision had already been made before kick-off to move all spectators to the Britannia Rescue Stand purely for health and safety reasons.
“The concern being that depending on how long the fault took to correct, the emergency lighting in the Revell Ward Stand would eventually have gone out as well.
“This would, of course, have been potentially very dangerous had the fault not been quickly corrected.
“Turnstiles were only kept closed for a short period while the plan was being agreed.
“During this time additional stewards were deployed outside the turnstiles to convey information to supporters.
“It is already clear that the transformer in question has a fully up to date service record. It was last serviced on August 11 and that service included the part in question.
“We have genuinely been very unlucky.
“There will be a full review and we will learn what we can from this.
“This incident came out of the blue – one million per cent.
“Of course, disruption to supporters is greatly regretted.
“However, I am very proud of the calm and professional way in which my team responded and that at all times, supporter safety way our primary concern.”
Click below for pictures from Friday night's match
