Heathrow fires: What caused the substation blaze which led to travel chaos

In March 2025, hundreds of passengers had been stranded at Heathrow and different airports worldwide after a close-by substation fireplace on the London airport that left it with out electrical energy.

Greater than 270,000 passengers had been impacted by the catastrophe, with planes grounded and airlines reportedly losing millions of pounds as a result of incident, which is considered the worst delay skilled on the airport since 2010 when snow pressured it to shut.

Now, a report by the Nationwide Vitality System Operator (NESO) has laid naked extra particulars about what precisely went improper. It’s additionally prompted Ofgem to launch its personal investigation into what it believes was a “preventable technical fault” within the Nationwide Grid.

What induced the Heathrow delays?

Stories on the time declare that 70 firefighters rushed to the scene of the fireplace, which took a number of hours to be safely extinguished. It wasn’t clear initially what had induced the fireplace, however consultants later dominated out foul play.

Nevertheless, it led to Heathrow remaining closed all through Friday, impacting lots of of hundreds of passengers and leaving hundreds of tonnes of cargo stranded.

Though some flights began to renew late on the Friday, common providers didn’t totally resume till round two days after the incident. This prompted preliminary considerations about how resilient airport operations had been to withstanding such incidents sooner or later.

In accordance with NESO, the fireplace was attributable to a “catastrophic” failure of a vital electrical energy substation element. The report revealed this was linked to moisture getting into the substation element, which is believed to have been preventable.

“This review has seen proof {that a} catastrophic failure on one of many transformer’s excessive voltage bushings at Nationwide Grid Electrical energy Transmission’s 275kV substation in Hayes induced the transformer to catch fire,” Wednesday’s assessment revealed.

“This was almost definitely attributable to moisture getting into the bushing, inflicting {an electrical} fault.” The report means that the electrical energy might have “arced” and triggered an ignition within the oil, which prompted the broader fireplace.

Findings additionally counsel that moisture had been detected in oil samples as early as 2018, “however mitigating actions applicable to its severity weren’t applied.”

Following the discharge of the report, a Heathrow spokesperson mentioned: “A mixture of outdated regulation, insufficient security mechanisms, and Nationwide Grid’s failure to keep up its infrastructure led to this catastrophic energy outage.”

In accordance with Vitality Secretary Ed Miliband: “The report is deeply regarding, as a result of identified dangers weren’t addressed by the Nationwide Grid Electrical energy Transmission, and Ofgem has now opened an official enforcement investigation to think about any attainable licence breaches referring to the event and upkeep of its electrical energy system at North Hyde.

Heathrow bosses got here below fireplace following the incident, largely over questions concerning the airport’s power resilience.

Some consultants had reportedly warned airport bosses previous to the incident that such dangers existed.

There have been additionally considerations about how an airport equivalent to Heathrow might reply if there was a nationwide safety incident sooner or later.

“If one fireplace can shut down Heathrow’s main techniques … it tells you one thing’s badly improper with our system of administration of such disasters,” Alan Mendoza, the chief director of the Henry Jackson Society, advised AP on the time.

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Heathrow fires: What caused the substation blaze which led to travel chaos

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