The Hayes firefighters, West London, received a call to explore the smoke that left North Hyde Power’s subparagraph at about 11:20 pm on Thursday around 11:20 pm, ran to a place located less than two miles from Heathrow Airport.
In a few hours one of the most prominent airports in the world was Closed for all air trafficThe coming aircraft from New Delhi and Los Angeles turned back and the beginnings began.
“How is it so critical infrastructure -The national and global significance is depended on one alternative-free source, “asked Willie Walsh, the General Director of the International Air Transport Association, the Air Force Lobby and the former British Airway CEO, who is a longtime Airport critic.
The question of how the fire in one substation could bring one of the world’s largest airports to stop Whitehall.
Although the cause of the ignition is unknown, the frenzyness of the flames, the frenzy of the fueled, stimulated by 25,000 liters of cooling oil within the transformer transformer, the substation transformers on the spot are sufficient.
This was enough to knock out the entire substation that supplies electricity with terminals 2 and 4 on Tinsel Apart from the lightning on the runway, launching such a mess at the airport, he decided to completely close himself.
Heathrow’s spare Diesel generators acted as planned. But these are in place to make sure it can perform basics such as landing and evacuation of passengers, not to initiate complete surgery.
“Unable to have a backup for all the energy we need to safely start our work,” Heathrow said.
Shortly before 2:00 pm, engineers in the national network and Scottish and southern electric networks, said they reconfigured the substation so that she could re -supply the energy of Heathrow.
But it took a few hours for the airport to convince himself that his power source was reliable and that his electronics had safely returned to the net. Shortly after 4 pm, the airport announced plans to re -open, and the first flights were supposed to take off from around 7pm.
But on Heathrow, the pressure is increasing to explain why this allowed it to become so much exposed to one point of failure.
Dieter Helm, an expert in the Oxford University, said it was a “huge call to wake up about the lack of resistance to all our critical infrastructure and its interdependence.”
“As the UK and Europe had a huge call to defense, it is blinding obvious that energy infrastructure is targeted number one. You need a lot more resistance in the energy system if you face a serious threat of security.”
Thomas Woldbye, Executive Director of Heathrow, said the planning of extraordinary airport states worked.
He said the airport could start power from the remaining two of the three substations of which it needed, but by moving its electronic systems to restructured power supply “It takes time”.
Woldbye said: “We lost a lot of our power supply … This was a great seriousness incident. We lost power equal to the middle city, and our spare systems worked that they should, but they are not size to run the entire airport.”
The Heathrow Airport, which is privately owned by the consortium of investors, has been obsessed with more than £ 19 billion, and has long faced the issues of airlines in its finances and whether it has effectively invested in its infrastructure.
Experts have added that the fire emphasizes the need for the government to monitor the critical infrastructure in the UK, more than in private ownership than in any other country around the world. The United Kingdom of Electricity, Gas, Telecommunications and Water Networks, as well as ports and airports are in private hands.
The noble Francis, the director of the economy at the Construction Products Association, said: “Companies tend to spend on maintenance, reconstruction and expansion of capacity, but there must be a significant investment in resistance and unforeseen situations on basic infrastructure so that they can face major one -off disorders.”
The incident comes given that the UK should rely more on electric networks while trying to move towards electric cars and heat pumps that run renewable energy, as part of deviations from fossil fuels. A huge new capacity is required to connect new wind farms and solar farms with houses and companies.
Electrical networks around Western London have been the subject of intense control in recent years because the capacity has failed to monitor demand. Housewives are warned of long -term delays on projects as data centers are set up near fiber optical cable lines.
Tony Travers, a professor at the London School of Economics, said the incident raises the question “Are there other national infrastructure assets that are vulnerable to a one -off incident and who is part of the Government responsible for regulatory supervision, even if privately owned.”
Passengers delayed around the world have a more urgent question: When will they get into the air? “We got stuck here without an alternative than eating at the hotel,” said Sarah Jones, a retiree who will fly to Singapore with her husband, at the Sofitel Hotel near Heathrow. “Breakfast costs £ 66 for two … and Prices go up as we talk. ”
Additional Akila Quinio reporting in Heathrow
