An initial examination of the power failure that resulted in the closure of Heathrow Airport will be made public on Thursday. The airport was compelled to suspend all flights until around 18:00 GMT on 21 March due to an unexpected power loss caused by a fire at a nearby electricity substation. This incident began the previous night and impacted over 270,000 air travelers.
Following the fire, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband directed the National Energy System Operator (NESO) to investigate the cause and present its preliminary findings within six weeks. The NESO North Hyde Review Interim Report will concentrate on establishing the sequence of events that led to the outage. It seeks to clarify the roles of the key parties involved and identify areas for further inquiry before delivering the final report by the end of June 2025.
During a recent parliamentary session, it was disclosed that Heathrow Airport had been cautioned about its power supply in the lead-up to the occurrence. Nigel Wicking, CEO of the Heathrow Airline Operators Committee, reported raising concerns with airport officials regarding a few incidents involving theft of wire and cable that affected runway lights. Despite the warnings, Heathrow dismissed any connection between these incidents and the fire at the North Hyde substation.
After the hearing, Heathrow pushed back against Mr. Wicking’s assertions, asserting that the referenced incidents were unrelated to the substation fire. According to an airport source, attempting to draw parallels between these events is unwarranted. Mr. Wicking estimated that the flight suspension cost airlines between £60m to £100m. As Europe’s largest airport, Heathrow accommodated over 83.9 million passengers in 2024
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