Heathrow live: Airport orders investigation into crisis management plans amid ‘laughing stock’ criticism
British Airways says it expects ‘near-full’ schedule at Heathrow on Sunday after fire at electricity substation caused 15-hour shutdown
Heathrow’s chair has ordered an internal investigation into the airport’s crisis management plans and response to the power outage which forced it to close for 15 hours on Friday.
Former transport secretary Ruth Kelly – who is a member of Heathrow’s board – will lead the review after more than 1,300 flights were grounded and up to 300,000 passengers were affected worldwide.
The outage – caused by a fire at a single substation in west London – has been dubbed “a huge embarrassment” by Labour peer Toby Harris, who leads the National Preparedness Commission campaign group, while the boss of supply chain firm PS Forwarding warned the shutdown had left Heathrow a “laughing stock” in the global freight community.
Energy secretary Ed Miliband has separately ordered the National Energy System Operator to “urgently investigate” the electrical substation fire, which is expected to report its findings within six weeks.
Despite the airport saying it was “fully operational” once again on Saturday, at least 100 more flights had been cancelled as of 3pm. However, British Airways – whose main hub is Heathrow – said it expected to have a “near-full” schedule on Sunday.
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'Fire not suspicious' Police say after initial assessment
Counter-terrorism officers from the Metropolitan Police have been leading the investigation into the cause of the fire, which did not result in any casualties at the scene.
“After initial assessment, we are not treating this incident as suspicious, although inquiries do remain ongoing,” Commander Simon Messinger said.
Thousands of homes were left without power and more than 100 people were evacuated after a transformer within the substation caught fire.
Heathrow explains power failure
Heathrow Airport has explained why the backup generator could not power the whole airport.
It said: “We have multiple sources of energy into Heathrow. But when a source is interrupted, we have back-up diesel generators and uninterruptable power supplies in place, and they all operated as expected.
“Our back-up systems are safety systems which allow us to land aircraft and evacuate passengers safely, but they are not designed to allow us to run a full operation.
“As the busiest airport in Europe, Heathrow uses as much energy as a small city, therefore it’s not possible to have backup for all of the energy we need to run our operation safely.
“We are implementing a process which will allow us to redirect power to the affected areas, but this is a safety-critical process which takes time, and maintaining safety remains our priority, so we have taken the decision to close the airport for today.”
‘It could be days before passengers are sorted out’ says Transport Select Committee chair
Ruth Cadbury, chair of the Transport Select Committee, has been speaking exclusively to The Independent.
“Like everyone I feel most for the 200,000-old passengers who were affected – but also the airline and airport staff who have to deal with the frustration and stress of all those passengers who either need to get home or have to get to weddings, funerals, to start a holiday.
“All of those people who were due to fly yesterday and are still planning to make that journey – it could be days before they’re sorted out.”
Ms Cadbury, who is Labour MP for Brentford and Isleworth in west London, said questions about the resilience of the electricity supply in the area needed to be answered.
“We don’t actually know whether the issue is the responsibility of Heathrow airport or National Grid infrastructure,” she said.
“We have a grid capacity challenge in outer west London due to a lack of enhancements coming in, and the data centres – of which we have a cluster – taking so much power.
“Hopefully in the days or weeks to come, we will know more.”
'No comment' Heathrow Chief Executive asked if should lose his job
Asked if anyone should be fired for this, Heathrow chief executive Thomas Woldbye told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I’ll look back at that when I have all the details.
“Right now our focus is to make sure our passengers are safe and secure, that the airport is operating as it should so we can get aircraft in the air and get our passengers travelling.”
Asked if he should still be in his role, he said bluntly: “No comment to that. I’ll let others judge if they think that’s an issue.”
'I'm proud of what people did' Heathrow boss fights back
Responding to the accusation that Heathrow is a “laughing stock” after one fire closed the airport, Heathrow chief executive Thomas Woldbye said: “Personally I am quite proud of the entire eco-system - our airlines, our handlers.
“People got us out of the situation which was created outside of the airport.
“There will be questions but I don’t know of an airport that has back up supply that can switch on in minutes of the magnitude we saw yesterday. The same would happen in other airports.”
He said he would establish the facts before blaming anyone for the outage.
'We were shut for hours, not days'
Heathrow chief executive Thomas Woldbye has admitted he was shocked by the “unprecedented” fire and said he would look at the “resilience” of Europe’s busiest airport.
He told the BBC’s Today programme: “The incident yesterday was major it was no small thing. It takes time to reset the airport. “But remember hospitals and homes and other areas went down.
“We have three substations that power different sections of the airport. But when one goes down entirely, which is unprecedented and we have to live with the consequences.
“The airport shut not for days, but for hours because we had to reroute our power supply that requires taking down systems and powering them up again.
“We will learn from this and will ask do we need another level of resilience if we can’t trust the grid around us is working the way it should.”
'Heathrow uses as much energy as a city every day' Airport boss explains back-up power failure
Heathrow chief executive Thomas Woldbye told the BBC’s Today programme: “We are sincerely sorry for the inconvenience that passengers have experienced.”
He said the power substation that caught fire was not part of Heathrow’s infrastructure.
“All our backup systems were up and running, our tower was running but our systems are not designed to power the entire airport. We would need a seperate standby powerplant on site and we don’t have that.
“Heathrow uses as much energy as a city every day. We don’t have backup power for fuel systems, bridges and so on.”
He added: “Everything comes to a standstill when we need to reset as we did yesterday.”
'Airlines will handle stranded passengers' Heathrow boss
Asked about reports disruptions could bleed into next week, Heathrow chief executive Thomas Woldbye told the BBC’s Today programme: “There are no disruptions to airport operations.
“Airlines, ofcourse, have tales of stranded passengers who need repatriation and so on and they will handle that.
“But the airport itself is running as normal.”
'We will handle delays as we normally do' Heathrow chief executive
Heathrow chief executive Thomas Woldbye has told the BBC’s Today programme in an update on Saturday morning: “We don’t expect any major flights to be delayed we are operating as normal.
“On any busy day, as today is, not just because of yesterday there are some cancellations and delays and we are handling them as we normaly do.”
Texan hails 'fantastic' airline response as he finally touches down in Heathrow
An American tourist has praised his airline’s and Heathrow’s “fantastic” response to a fire that closed the transport hub on Friday.
Speaking at Heathrow, Tim Kolb, who travelled to the UK on holiday from Dallas, Texas, he said: “I was just getting ready to board the plane on Thursday night, and the news actually started coming across on our phones quicker than on the (airport) desk.
“But American Airlines did a fabulous job – we didn’t have to wait in the line or anything. They got us our accommodation reservation.”
Mr Kolb, 55, added: “I thought I was going to be there delayed two days, but I went over yesterday.
“It was organised well. In fact, they had several planes leaving within an hour of each other to Heathrow.
“The way everybody responded and fell into action, it was fantastic.”
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