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    Heathrow Airport closed for 24 hours after electrical substation fire causes power loss for west London
    United Kingdom

    Heathrow Airport closed for 24 hours after electrical substation fire causes power loss for west London

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    27 Comments

    2. DontPokeMe91 on

      >Passengers have been warned to stay away.

      How long till passengers are interviewed outside the airport complaining about their flight being cancelled?

    3. SevenNites on

      Airport closed for a whole day this is going to cause so much stress and disruption

    6. Drythorn on

      I can’t imagine how frustrating this must be, but I like they aren’t saying wait for updates and have just closed it all day. Pretty clear what the position is if you were unlucky enough to booked travel today.

    7. Due-Resort-2699 on

      I work at Edinburgh Airport and folk have turned up for their Heathrow flights kicking off . Like mate I just put bags on a conveyor belt they don’t tell me fuck all😂 . A high viz vest is like a magnet for abuse for situations you have nothing to do with in an airport

    8. Judge-Dredd_ on

      Joking apart, it is concerning that this is a single point of failure for the UKs largest airport

    9. greetp on

      Not wishing to stir up paranoia, but the cause of the fire should be thoroughly investigated.

    10. Ex-art-obs1988 on

      Single points of failure…

      No multiple feeds…

      No standby transformer or substation.

      No trailer substation available anymore due to maintenance costs.

      Yep sounds like a British tno/dno.

      The real question is what caused the fire, lack of maintenance/neglect or outside influences. Lots of our service providers are pushing basic maintenance out to its extremes so they can save costs by employing less people.

    11. Stephen2697 on

      • 20th of March 2025 – Substation (Heathrow)

      • 10th of March 2025 – Diesel Car Explodes in Airport tunnel (Heathrow)

      • 24th of June 2024 – Ground Stair Lift Fire (Heathrow)

      • 22nd of November 2024 – Bomb Disposal Unit deployed at Gatwick “Security Incident”.

      • 10th of October 2023 – Luton Carpark fire 1,352 vehicles destroyed

    12. humunculus43 on

      Anyone think this could be Russian sabotage? Feels like the type of operations they do in clear sight and know they can’t really be called out on it because the ramifications would be so severe

    14. Turbulent-Inside3365 on

      My first thoughts drift towards thinking this is sabotage. I don’t have anything to substantiate this claim. A fire such as this could be caused through physical damage or a cyber attack. Highly speculative, but NATO article 5 can be triggered in the event of asymmetric attack by a hostile foreign state. That’s why this is grabbing the headlines. No one is saying it yet.

      Poor maintenance or overloading is possible. However, it’s very low odds that a transformer station bursts into flames, especially one that supports major national infrastructure. This transformer also supports several huge data centres, yet someone who works for those data centres had the forsite to equip them with back up power units. The back up power units can run for around 20 hours. This leads to the biggest issue here…

      Who the fuck decided to run Heathrow without back up power?

    15. DogsOfWar2612 on

      My family were on their way back to Heathrow from the states when it happened and are now in Shannon in ireland after being redirected 

      So thought I’d keep it light by messaging ‘top a the morning to ya’ when I woke up and saw the news  

      Don’t think it was well recieved as my comedic genius was promptly ignored 

    18. PublicClear9120 on

      I’m in Hong Kong at the moment due to fly back to UK Monday I’m really worried the knock on effects of this will still be happening then

    19. dingdong303 on

      How can Heathrow not have redundancy with multiple substations supplying power. Ridiculous.

      Every bad actor now knows you can take out Heathrow by setting fire to a single substation.

    20. Pantisocracy on

      Yep. Was excited to see family over the weekend. Guess that’s not happening. Already had accommodation booked. Guess I’ll be having a lonely wank in a travelodge. Not that it would have been more joyous with family of course

    21. CustardToaster on

      I’m supposed to be driving down today to fly first thing tomorrow.. Guess this will be the first time I have to use my travel insurance..

    22. Neat-Thanks7092 on

      Russia yet again. How long will we put up with this before we realise we are already at war?

    23. bilbogod on

      Was commenting the other day that we can expect Russia to engage in these types of tactics (targeting critical infrastructure).Let’s see how this plays out

    24. Neal19 on

      Starmer talks tough, Heathrow shut down hours later. Could be coincidence I guess…/s

    25. spartacle on

      Ok, but my flight back is meant to land at 7 but I’ve had no luck emails from BA.. so I guess I’m landing at Gatewick?

    26. Putaineska on

      Shows how vulnerable our critical infrastructure is. And then we have some politicians trying to prepare us for a potential direct confrontation with Russia. One substation takes out our main airport.

    27. CensorTheologiae on

      Unfortunate for Heathrow, but what I’d like from journalists is some curiosity about why there’s been a spate of substation explosions this year so far.