An electrical engineer’s blunder is believed to have ignited the fire that led to Heathrow Airport’s shutdown last Friday, insiders claim.
The chaos at Europe’s busiest airport has left bosses facing tough questions after approximately 300,000 passengers were left in limbo worldwide due to the debacle. The inferno at North Hyde Electricity Substation nearby caused a “significant power outage” at Heathrow and triggered widespread power cuts in west London.
The disruption saw over 1,350 flights either delayed or scrapped, stranding holidaymakers overseas and preventing departures from the UK. It’s reported that around 120 transatlantic flights had to make U-turns mid-flight.
Counter-terrorism police are spearheading the investigation into the calamity, while sources in Westminster suggest human error is at fault. Insiders privy to the probe are hinting that an electrical engineer’s error may have set off the blaze, according to The Politico website today.
A source disclosed to the outlet: “It’s always cock-up rather than conspiracy,” reports the Mirror.
Last night, eight long-haul British Airways flights finally took to the skies, however, officials still faced mounting pressure over the chaos. Willie Walsh, director-general of the International Air Transport Association and a former head of British Airways, stated: “Firstly, how is it that critical infrastructure – of national and global importance – is totally dependent on a single power source without an alternative. If that is the case – as it seems – then it is a clear planning failure by the airport.”
The substation fire destroyed the transformer and damaged the backup, leaving Heathrow without power for most of Friday. The airport’s biomass power plant and diesel generators could only power essential safety systems like lighting.
Power was partially restored by 2 pm, but severe disruptions had already occurred. Scotland Yard has since stated it’s “not treating this incident as suspicious, although enquiries do remain ongoing.”
Phil Hewitt, director of energy analysis firm Montel Group, added: “This potential lack of resilience at a critical national and international infrastructure site is worrying. An airport as large and as important as Heathrow should not be vulnerable to a single point of failure.”
Heathrow’s chief executive Thomas Woldbye has described the recent crisis as “as bad as it gets for us”, with hopes that full operations will resume by Saturday.
The airport was forced to “restructured” its power supply, drawing from two other substations and rebooting thousands of systems, a process which takes “an enormous amount of time”.
Woldbye expressed deep regret over the disruption: “We are very sorry about all the inconvenience. We lost a major part of our power supply. This was an incident of major severity. We lost power equal to that of a mid-sized city.”
Despite the chaos, he assured that backup systems functioned correctly, although they aren’t designed to power the entire airport: “Our backup systems have been working as they should, but they are not sized to run the entire airport. This is unprecedented. Everyone has been shocked but all our procedures have been working as they should.”
