Heathrow’s chief executive has apologised to stranded passengers but defended the airport’s response to an ‘unprecedented’ loss of power caused by a substation fire.
Thomas Woldbye admitted the backup generators were never powerful enough to run the airport after the blaze knocked out an electricity substation in Hayes in the early hours of Friday.
He described the fire, which saw 200,000 travellers have their flights to or from Heathrow axed or diverted, ‘as big as it gets for our airport’ and said ‘we cannot guard ourselves 100%’.
The Heathrow boss, whose salary is believed to be around £5million a year, also said that a back-up transformer failed meaning systems had to be closed down so that power supplies could be restructured to restore electricity enough to power what is described as a ‘mid-sized city’.
The west London airport initially announced it would be closed until 11.59pm but later said repatriation flights and a handful of British Airways long-haul flights would resume Friday evening. It is expected to run a full schedule on Saturday.
Metropolitan Police have confirmed the fire ‘is believed to be non-suspicious’ while London Fire Brigade said its investigation will focus on the ‘electrical distribution equipment’.
Mr Woldbye said: ‘I’d like to stress that this has been an incident of major severity. It’s not a small fire. We have lost power equal to that of a mid-sized city and our backup systems have been working as they should but they are not sized to run the entire airport.’
Asked if there is a weak point in Heathrow’s power system, he said: ‘You can say that but of course contingencies of certain sizes we cannot guard ourselves against 100% and this is one of them.’
As Heathrow shut down sparking worldwide travel carnage:
A Virgin Atlantic aircraft arrives at Heathrow after being repositioned from London Gatwick
Thomas Woldbye described the blaze which knocked out an electricity substation in Hayes in the early hours of Friday as ‘as big as it gets for our airport’
A transformer within the North Hyde electrical substation in West London caught fire last night
Around 200,000 travellers saw their flights to or from Heathrow axed or diverted after the blaze
Mr Woldbye added: ‘This has been a major incident. I mean, short of anybody getting hurt, this is as big as it gets for our airport and we are actually coming back quite fast I would say, when you consider the amount of systems that we have to shut down then bring back up and make sure that they’re safe.’
The first plane landed at around 6pm closure as a British Airways jet touched down on Friday about 18 hours after the airport was closed due to a massive power outage.
One of the eight long-haul flights the airline announced were set to leave Heathrow on Friday evening departed at 8.58pm.
The British Airways flight to Riyadh, in Saudi Arabia, took off 40 minutes from its expected departure time.
Willie Walsh, the head of the global airlines body IATA and a former head of British Airways, said Heathrow had once again let passengers down.
He said: ‘This is yet another case of Heathrow letting down both travellers and airlines. And that begs some serious questions.
‘Firstly, how is it that critical infrastructure—of national and global importance—is totally dependent on a single power source without an alternative.
‘If that is the case—as it seems—then it is a clear planning failure by the airport. And, from that arises the question of who bears the costs of taking care of disrupted travelers. ‘
Mr Woldbye said that the airport expects to return to ‘100% operation’ on Saturday.
He said: ‘(Passengers) should come to the airport as they normally would. There’s no reason to come earlier.’
The CEO said Heathrow will ‘look at anything we can learn from this’ and encouraged the Prime Minister to ask him any questions he has.
The runway at Heathrow Airport is lit again after a fire at an electrical substation
The west London airport initially announced it would be closed until 11.59pm but later said repatriation flights and a handful of British Airways long-haul flights would resume Friday evening
It is expected Heathrow will run a full schedule on Saturday. Pictured: Parked planes at Heathrow Terminal 5
Heathrow airport finally re-opens its doors to passengers this evening after being closed all day
Video footage shows the dramatic moment an American Airlines pilot told passengers enroute to London that their plane would be performing a sudden u-turn.
Flight AA730 left Charlotte in North Carolina at 7.30pm EDT last night (11.30pm GMT) and was due to land at Heathrow over seven hours later at 7am GMT (3am EDT).
But as the Boeing 777 made it to the eastern edge of Canada passengers were left shocked as the flight path map on their screens showed it had done a 180-degree turn.
The travellers were among the 670 flights affected by the unprecedented chaos at Europe’s busiest airport – with significant disruption expected to continue for days.
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander called it ‘an unprecedented situation that has been totally outside of Heathrow’s control’, as she said ‘we will learn lessons’ from the disorder.
She added that there is no suggestion of foul play in the fire. Counter terrorism police are involved in identifying the cause of the substation fire because it took place next to a critical piece of national infrastructure.
In the clip, the pilot can be heard saying: ‘Some of you may have noticed on the TV screen we have made a 180-degree turn. We are heading back to Charlotte.
‘Let me tell you what is going on – there was a huge fire at the power substation at London Heathrow. The runways have light but there is no power at all in the terminals and they are not accepting flights into London Heathrow for the next 22 hours.’
An American Airlines pilot told passengers flying from Charlotte that they were heading back
The plane was en route to London Heathrow when the pilot said it would be returning to the US
The American Airlines flight had made it to the eastern edge of Canada but had to head back
He added: ‘Gatwick and Manchester were not accepting flights and but then they changed their minds and said they are accepting flights.
‘But we are so far away from those airports that by the time we get to Gatwick or Manchester there will be no room for our airplane because all the other airplanes are diverting to Manchester and Gatwick and that’s why we are returning to Charlotte.’
As passengers could be heard groaning at the news, the pilot added: ‘We will be on the ground in three hours and about 24 minutes.’
They ended up landing back at Charlotte at about 2.30am EDT this morning (6.30am GMT), just half an hour before they had originally been due to land at Heathrow today – meaning they had completed a 3,500-mile flight for nothing.
However, electricity now appears to have returned to the airport after an ‘interim solution’ was found by engineers at National Grid.
Reporters inside Terminal 4 this afternoon said lights in the main building have switched back on and lifts in the multi-storey car park are operational again.
Speaking this afternooon, Heathrow’s chief executive gave details over the decision to close Europe’s busiest airport on Friday after a fire at a substation caused a power outage.
Speaking to reporters, Mr Woldbye said: ‘We have three of these substations, each of them has a backup transformer.
‘The backup transformer in this case also went and then we had to restructure the supply. So we’re not out of power but we have to restructure our power supply.
‘To do that we have to close down systems – that is safety procedure, we will not go around that.’
He added: ‘Two substations can run the airport but we need to re-engineer the structure of the power supply for all the terminals and that’s what we were doing during the day, and then we have to restart all the systems and that’s what we’ve done, and we now see operation coming back.’
He described the decision to close the airport as a ‘very difficult one’ that they took ‘quite early’ when it became clear Heathrow could not be safely operated.
And in a statement, the airport announced that it was now ‘safely able to begin some flights later today’ – with British Airways given clearance for eight long-haul journeys.
‘Our first flights will be repatriation flights and relocating aircraft,’ a spokesman said. ‘Please do not travel to the airport unless your airline has advised you to do so.
‘We will now work with the airlines on repatriating the passengers who were diverted to other airports in Europe. We hope to run a full operation tomorrow and will provide further information shortly.
However, travel journalist Simon Calder insisted tomorrow will be far from a ‘normal day’ at Heathrow and disruption will ‘stretch into next week’.
‘Ultimately it’s extremely damaging to the UK economically, reputationally and so much distress to people. All those people have been let down’, he said.
Another passenger was travelling from Thailand to Heathrow but ended up in a Frankfurt hotel
A passenger was halfway to London on a eight-hour flight from Dubai which had to turn back
Travellers arrive at Terminal 5 as London’s Heathrow Airport says it plans to resume some flights later today
Electricity now appears to have returned to the airport after an ‘interim solution’ was found by engineers at National Grid
Those feeling most let down are likely to be those forced into hotels, with prices near to Heathrow surging by £946 a night.
One hotel by Heathrow was tonight charging a whopping £1,000 for a standard room for two people.
The price listed for the North Avenue Guest House on Booking.com is staggeringly higher than the £54 it would cost you to stay next Friday instead – a difference of £946. This also means a room tonight is 1,850 per cent of the price next Friday.
Passengers on other flights also posted videos on social media of their planes being diverted, including one who was travelling from Malaysia.
Another was on a flight which U-turned back to Kuala Lumpur shortly after taking off.
A third was travelling from Thailand to Heathrow but ended up in a hotel in Frankfurt after being diverted en route.
And a fourth was halfway to London on a eight-hour flight from Dubai which had to turn back.
Meanwhile, passengers on board Qantas flights to Heathrow Airport from Singapore and Perth were diverted to Paris before taking buses to London, the airline said.
A Qantas spokesperson said: ‘Our Singapore-London and Perth-London services were diverted to Paris today, with buses arranged to take customers on to London.
‘Our teams are working hard to support impacted customers and we thank them for their patience.’
Passengers are now being warned to expect disruption for several days due to the Heathrow closure, and many planes and flight crews are now in the wrong location.
Online flight tracking service Flightradar24 said the closure would affect more than 1,350 flights to and from Heathrow today.
This includes 679 scheduled to land and 678 due to take off from the airport.
It said 120 flights to the airport were in the air when the closure was announced.
Flights were diverted to Gatwick, Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris and Ireland’s Shannon Airport. Some were also turned around and returned to airports in Canada.
London Gatwick accepted seven diverted flights from locations including Singapore, Johannesburg, Lagos, Cape Town and Doha which were originally destined for Heathrow.
Shannon Airport in Co Clare accepted six diversions from Toronto, Atlanta, Bridgetown Barbados, Boston, Orlando and Newark.
The Metropolitan Police said there is ‘currently no indication of foul play’ and that its Counter Terrorism Command would lead inquiries given the impact of the fire ‘on critical national infrastructure’.
Smoke continues to billow from the North Hyde electrical substation in West London today
Commander Simon Messinger, who is leading the Met Police response to the incident, said: ‘The investigation into the cause of the fire remains in its early stages. After initial assessment, we are not treating this incident as suspicious, although inquiries do remain ongoing.
‘Due to the location of the substation and the impact this incident has had on critical national infrastructure, the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command are leading our inquiries into this matter.
‘This is due to the specialist resources and capabilities within that command that can assist in progressing this investigation at pace and to help minimise disruption and identify the cause.
‘Officers are working closely with a number of local partners, including the London Fire Brigade, National Grid and SSEN to build a picture of the circumstances surrounding the fire.
‘Various specialist investigators continue to examine the scene and it is expected to take some time before full assessments can be completed.
‘Officers will continue to work alongside colleagues on the investigation, but as we have stated above, at this stage, there remains no indication of any foul play.’
In a statement on Friday evening, London Fire Brigade (LFB) Deputy Commissioner Jonathan Smith said: ‘London Fire Brigade Fire Investigation Officers, supported by a scientific adviser, have been working closely with the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) to investigate the cause of this fire.
‘The MPS has confirmed that the fire is believed to be non-suspicious. LFB’s investigation will now focus on the electrical distribution equipment.
‘The Brigade is the enforcing authority for the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 and has therefore had Fire Safety Officers at the scene to follow up various lines of enquiry, and work will continue into the coming weeks.
‘I would like to take this opportunity to thank firefighters and Control officers for their courage and professionalism in bringing this incident under control in what were very challenging circumstances.’
Thousands of homes have been left without power and more than 100 people were evacuated after a transformer within the North Hyde electrical substation caught fire in West London.
The airport, which is supplied by the substation, said it was among those affected by the power outage.
Tom Watters, who has worked on critical infrastructure around the world, told MailOnline the crucial substation powering Heathrow and west London contains ‘very old’ equipment and blamed a ‘lack of investment’ for the crisis and blamed the catastrophic failure of an ‘oil-filled transformer’ for the devastating fire.
The substation fire in Hayes involved 25,000 litres of cooling oil igniting, the London Fire Brigade (LFB) has said.
MailOnline can also reveal that a report for London Mayor Sadiq Khan in 2022 identified major problems with the electricity supply system in the Heathrow area.
It warned that the North Hyde substation, which exploded into flames last night, has been running at 106.2 per cent of capacity.
Parked planes and an empty runway at London Heathrow Terminal 5 today after it was closed
Hilton London Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 (pictured) – where prices tonight more than three times the cost for next week
Firefighters wearing masks at the scene of the major blaze in West London this morning
An almost empty Arrivals Hall at Heathrow Terminal 4 in London this morning after its closure
Heathrow is the UK’s largest airport, with more than 83.9 million passengers travelling through its terminals in 2024.
Electrical engineer Mr Watters, director of Sanguine Impact Investments, told MailOnline: ‘An oil filled transformer has obviously failed and caused the massive fire.
‘This looks like a very old transformer and it’s surprising that such an old piece of critical equipment was still in service. I assume a lack of investment is the reason.
‘The design of the substation while being ok is also very old style. Modern substations are normally enclosed using gas as the insulation’.
Counter terrorism police are now leading the probe into the fire amid fears it could be a Russian sabotage attack.
Western officials have accused Russia and its proxies of staging dozens of attacks and other incidents across Europe since the invasion of Ukraine three years ago.
They allege that the disruption campaign is an extension of President Putin’s war, intended to sow division in European societies and undermine support for Ukraine – although the Kremlin has denied carrying out sabotage efforts against the West.
Transport Secretary Ms Alexander said that counter terrorism police are involved in identifying the cause of the substation fire because it took place next to a critical piece of national infrastructure.
A screen at Hatton Cross Underground station today tells passengers that Heathrow is closed
‘The counter terrorism command has specific capabilities and capacities that mean that they are used to conducting investigations at pace, and it’s really important that we identify the cause of this quickly.
‘There are no suggestions at the moment of foul play, but you will appreciate the investigation, keeps an open mind, and our priority is identifying the cause as soon as possible.’
Earlier this week, Putin had agreed to a limited ceasefire that stops Russia targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure after a phone call with US President Donald Trump.
Now, experts are analysing whether Russia could be linked to the UK substation fire, which is affecting 679 flights scheduled to land and 678 departures from Heathrow.
Scotland Yard’s Counter Terrorism Command is leading the investigation given the need to quickly establish whether sabotage was involved and the security questions relating to how one fire took down a major piece of infrastructure. It comes as:
