It was revealed in the final report yesterday that a power outage that shut Heathrow Airport earlier this year, causing travel chaos for more than 270,000 passengers, was caused by a “catastrophic failure” of equipment in a nearby substation in Hayes.
Experts say the fire at the North Hyde Substation, which supplies electricity to Heathrow, started following the failure of a high-voltage electrical insulator known as a bushing, before spreading.
The failure was “most likely” caused by moisture entering the equipment, according to the report.
Responding to the publication of the NESO report into the substation fire which crippled Heathrow Airport earlier this year, Sutton & Cheam MP Luke Taylor, Liberal Democrat spokesperson for London and Chair of the Future of Aviation APPG, said:
“This report is an utterly damning assessment of our national resilience. It’s deeply alarming that the problem which caused this substation failure was known as long ago as 2018.
“As the UK’s largest airport, Heathrow is critical national infrastructure. For too long, Governments have worked on short-term timescales, rather than bringing together a proper long-term strategy to protect, maintain and upgrade ageing infrastructure.
“The Liberal Democrats are the only party looking beyond the short-term with a strategic and long term plan to join-up national infrastructure and make it safe and reliable for all.
“The Government must bring about such a strategy, and act quickly to review the resilience of all similar assets, including every U.K. airport. The failure to address known problems, as happened at Heathrow, can never be allowed to happen again.”
Responding to the report’s findings, a Heathrow spokesperson said: “A combination of outdated regulation, inadequate safety mechanisms, and National Grid’s failure to maintain its infrastructure led to this catastrophic power outage.
“We expect National Grid to be carefully considering what steps they can take to ensure this isn’t repeated.
“Our own Review, led by former Cabinet Minister Ruth Kelly, identified key areas for improvement and work is already underway to implement all 28 recommendations.”
