was closure needed? « Euro Weekly News

Normal services have resumed at Heathrow Airport after a fire at an electrical substation in Hayes triggered a major power outage on March 20.

The disruption reportedly affected around 200,000 passengers and led to the temporary closure of the entire airport.

Flights started to resume between March 21-22 with Heathrow reportedly serving over 250,000 passengers across the weekend.

National Grid defends power supply to Heathrow during closure

John Pettigrew, CEO of the National Grid, claimed there was no shortage of power available to Heathrow, despite the shutdown. Speaking to The Financial Times, he said: “Each substation individually can provide enough power to Heathrow. Losing a substation is a unique event – but there were two others available. So that is a level of resilience.”

In response, a Heathrow spokesperson stated: “His view confirms that this was an unprecedented incident and that it would not have been possible for Heathrow to operate uninterrupted. Hundreds of critical systems across the airport were required to be safely powered down and then safely and systematically rebooted” (cited by Sky News).

Heathrow Airport systems forced offline to ensure safe reboot

Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander confirmed that Heathrow made the decision to suspend flights, telling Sky News: “The fire had created a very significant problem with respect to Terminals two and four specifically and… all the systems had to be turned off and all the systems had to be restarted again in a safe way.”

Heathrow CEO Thomas Woldbye previously explained that a back-up transformer failed during the outage, requiring systems to shut down in accordance with safety procedures. He added that the airport’s power supply had to be restructured from the two remaining substations to ensure operations could restart safely.

Investigation and internal review launched on Heathrow closure

Although the Metropolitan Police’s counter-terrorism unit initially led the investigation, the fire is not being treated as suspicious. The London Fire Brigade has now taken over, focusing on the airport’s electrical distribution equipment, as reported by The Guardian.

In response to the recent disruption, former Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly has been appointed to lead an internal review. Heathrow Chair Lord Deighton said: “The Kelly review will analyse all of the relevant material concerning the robustness and execution of Heathrow’s crisis management plans… with the objective of identifying any improvements that could be made to our future resilience,” as reported by The Guardian.

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