Hillingdon (Parliament Politics Magazine) – Energy Secretary Ed Miliband orders investigation at Heathrow power outage, caused by a fire in Hillingdon, which disrupted flights and services on Friday.
He is collaborating with Ofgem and formally initiating the grid operator’s probe by utilizing the Energy Act’s authority.
“We are determined to properly understand what happened and what lessons need to be learned,”
Mr Miliband said.
“That is why, working with Ofgem, I have today commissioned the National Energy System Operator to carry out an investigation into this specific incident and to understand any wider lessons to be learned on energy resilience for critical national infrastructure, both now and in the future.
The Government is determined to do everything it can to prevent a repeat of what happened at Heathrow.”
Within six weeks, the National Energy System Operator (Neso) is anticipated to provide preliminary findings to Ofgem and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.
Following hours of shutdown, flights at the west London airport resumed on Friday night, and overnight flight restrictions were temporarily removed.
The night before, an electrical substation in Hayes was destroyed by a fire.
The London Fire Brigade is now in charge of the investigation, which will concentrate on the electrical distribution equipment, after counterterrorism officers from the Metropolitan Police first led it.
The force has stated that the fire is thought to be non-suspicious.
In order to accommodate an additional 10,000 people using the airport, Heathrow announced that it has added 50 slots to the Saturday timetable.
A spokesperson said:
“We can confirm that Heathrow is open and fully operational today.
Teams across the airport continue to do everything they can to support passengers impacted by yesterday’s outage at an off-airport power substation.
We have hundreds of additional colleagues on hand in our terminals and we have added flights to today’s schedule to facilitate an extra 10,000 passengers travelling through the airport.”
Passengers travelling today should check with their airline for the latest information regarding their flight.
Later, the airport stated that all parking lots and terminals are open.
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said:
“This incident caused significant disruption but Heathrow, National Grid, and our emergency services have worked swiftly to get people travelling again.
Heathrow is a massive airport that uses the energy of a small city, so it’s imperative we identify how this power failure happened and learn from this to ensure a vital piece of national infrastructure remains strong.
Whilst Heathrow is back to business, some disruption is expected over coming days as things get back to normal so I encourage anyone travelling to check with their airlines and plan their journeys.”
Akshay Kaul, director general for infrastructure at Ofgem, said that they saw yesterday the huge disruption that comes when energy supply is disrupted, and it’s important we now understand how that happened.
Households and businesses should be able to have confidence in the resilience of critical national infrastructure, and Ofgem will work with the government and others to ensure Neso’s review goes as far as possible to ensure steps are put in place to avoid any repeat of an incident of this scale in the future.
To the extent the review finds any breaches of standards or licence obligations, they will not hesitate to take action.
Heathrow chief executive Thomas Woldbye welcomed the investigation, adding that they will support every effort to understand the causes and impacts of yesterday’s off-airport incident and they are committed to working closely with all stakeholders to ensure a thorough investigation to help strengthen the airport’s future resilience.
In order to attend a friend’s wedding in Cambodia on Sunday, Farah Rafeeq, 24, was scheduled to fly with Singapore Airlines on Friday from Heathrow with her friend Niken Wulan, 32.
They will now miss a portion of the ceremony due to the widespread airline cancellations.
Turkish Airlines and Bangkok Airways have an alternate route from Gatwick airport that will take them to Cambodia on Sunday afternoon.
Ms Rafeeq, who works in climate project management, told the PA news agency from Gatwick on Saturday:
“The last few hours have been nightmarish because it is one of our closest friends’ weddings and we have to travel for at least 20 hours to get there.
We had to pay double the amount, between £600 and £700, for the new flight, and we had planned this trip for months and had hotels booked and were flying to South-east Asia after the wedding.”
An American tourist praised his airline’s and Heathrow’s “fantastic” response to the disruption.
Speaking at the airport, holidaymaker Tim Kolb, who travelled from Dallas, Texas, told PA that he was just getting ready to board the plane on Thursday night, and the news actually started coming across on our phones quicker than on the (airport) desk.
But American Airlines did a fabulous job – they didn’t have to wait in the line or anything. They got us our accommodation reservation.”
Mr Kolb, 55, added that he thought I was going to be there (Dallas) delayed two days, but he went over yesterday. It was organised well, in fact, they had several planes leaving within an hour of each other to Heathrow.
BA, a major player at Heathrow, stated that it anticipates using the airport for about 85% of its scheduled flights on Saturday.
Although the airline typically anticipates operating close to 600 departures and arrivals on Saturday, it is acknowledged that some cancellations will occur, mostly on high-frequency flights.
According to Mr. Woldbye, a backup transformer malfunctioned during the power outage, necessitating the closure of systems in compliance with safety protocols. This allowed for the restructuring of power supplies from the two surviving substations, restoring sufficient electricity to power the so-called “mid-sized city.”
He expressed regret to the passengers who were left stranded and defended the airport’s handling of the event, stating that “we cannot guard ourselves 100%” and that the incident was “as big as it gets for our airport.”
A transformer inside the substation caught fire, resulting in the evacuation of over 100 individuals and the loss of power in thousands more houses.
With over 83.9 million passengers passing through its terminals in 2024, Heathrow is the biggest airport in Europe. The closure on Friday has impacted almost 200,000 people.
Since December 2010, when thousands of people seeking a Christmas holiday camped out in the terminals due to extensive cancellations due to snow, this is thought to be the biggest disruption at Heathrow.
In April of that year, an ash cloud from a volcanic eruption in Iceland stopped flights throughout Europe.
What are the investigation details on this Heathrow incident?
Investigations are being conducted to determine the precise cause of the electrical substation fire, but it is not thought to be suspicious. Equipment failure or outside interference, like animals or debris getting into the substation, are examples of potential causes.
On Friday, March 21, 2025, Heathrow had to close for the day due to a major power loss caused by the fire. Approximately 200,000 travelers were impacted by this closure, which disrupted more than 1,300 flights.
The event brought to light Heathrow, Hillingdon’s surprisingly inadequate backup power systems, which is uncommon for vital infrastructure. Airports usually feature backup power sources to guarantee uninterrupted operations in the event of an outage.