Heathrow Airport is considering taking authorized motion in opposition to Nationwide Grid following a brand new report that make clear the reason for a hearth earlier this yr that grounded flights.
In March 2025, 1000’s of passengers had been stranded at Heathrow and different airports worldwide after a close-by substation hearth left the London airport with out electrical energy.
A assessment right into a fire that led to widespread chaos has discovered that Nationwide Grid failed to keep up its infrastructure, ensuing within the blaze of a substation in Hayes, which it managed.
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 unsuitable. It’s additionally prompted Ofgem to launch its personal investigation into what it believes was a “preventable technical fault” within the Nationwide Grid.
What brought about the Heathrow delays?
Reviews on the time declare that 70 firefighters rushed to the scene of the hearth, which took a number of hours to be safely extinguished. It wasn’t clear initially what had brought about the hearth, however consultants later dominated out foul play.
Nevertheless, it led to Heathrow remaining closed all through Friday, impacting tons of of 1000’s of passengers and leaving 1000’s 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.
Based on NESO, the hearth was attributable to a “catastrophic” failure of an important electrical energy substation element that was overseen by the Nationwide Grid. The report revealed this was linked to moisture coming into the substation element, which is believed to have been preventable.
“This was almost certainly attributable to moisture coming into the bushing, inflicting {an electrical} fault.” The report means that the electrical energy could have “arced” and triggered an ignition within the oil, which prompted the broader hearth.
Findings additionally recommend 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 mix of outdated regulation, insufficient security mechanisms, and Nationwide Grid’s failure to keep up its infrastructure led to this catastrophic energy outage.”
Based on Vitality Secretary Ed Miliband: “The report is deeply regarding, as a result of recognized dangers weren’t addressed by the Nationwide Grid Electrical energy Transmission, and Ofgem has now opened an official enforcement investigation to think about any potential licence breaches regarding the event and upkeep of its electrical energy system at North Hyde.
Heathrow bosses got here beneath hearth following the incident, largely over questions in regards to 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 corresponding to Heathrow may reply if there was a nationwide safety incident sooner or later.
“If one hearth can shut down Heathrow’s major programs … it tells you one thing’s badly unsuitable with our system of administration of such disasters,” Alan Mendoza, the chief director of the Henry Jackson Society, informed AP on the time.
