Ministers and Heathrow Chiefs were warned ten years ago that an 'important weakness' at the airport was the most important electricity supply, the mail can reveal on Sunday.
A report from Jacobs, an important consultancy firm, emphasized in November 2014 how electricity malfunctions can fully close the busiest airport in Europe.
“Even a short interruption of electricity supply can have a long -term impact because systems can take time to recover,” warned the report that is published on a government website.
The revelation comes when Heathrow was branded yesterday, a 'smiling shares' and his bosses accused of complacency after a fire at a single electricity station had closed the airport for almost 24 hours.
The fire at the North Hyde -under station in Hayes on Thursday evening resulted in unprecedented scenes, with nearly 1,400 flights canceled or delayed.
About 120 transatlantic services were forced to run halfway through Journey and tens of thousands of passengers were stranded all over the world.
Although the airport stated yesterday that it was 'open and fully operational', the disruption is expected to last until the middle of this week, because aircraft and crew are now out of position all over the world.
Last night Lord Paul Deighton of Heathrow said that an internal assessment to the power outage will be challenged by former secretary of Labor Transport Ruth Kelly. He said it will concentrate on the plans for crisis management of the airport.
The shocking scenes in the most important substation of Heathrow in Hayes, which exploded and set fire to the busiest airport of Great -Britain for the entire Friday – the earth of 1,357 flights and more than 200,000 people
The abandoned runway and BA's grounded fleet on Heathrow on Friday, in a crisis compared to 9/11 in terms of the number of flights based
Lord Toby Harris, chairman of the National Preparedness Commission, which promotes the policy that is designed to better prepare the UK for crises, said that the closure was a 'enormous failure'.
“It sounds like Heathrow Airport was simply not as prepared as it should have been,” he said, adding that a explanation from Heathrow said that backup systems at the airport was “the way they would be” quite complacent. “
Jason Bona, owner of Supply Chain Company PS, said that it was expected to receive freight on 15 uk-bound flights that all were canceled or diverted after the fire.
“I had friends in India to call me at 5 o'clock asking what's going on,” he said. “I have a WhatsApp group full of international forwarders with memes and the like – we are a laugh.”
Yesterday, energy secretary Ed Miliband ordered the Operator of the National Energy System to urgently investigate the power outage.
He also told the watchdog to get a broader picture of whether the electricity grid is vulnerable to more disasters.
“We are determined to understand what happened and what lessons should be learned,” he said.
“The government is determined to do everything to prevent a repetition of what happened in Heathrow.”
Yesterday, energy secretary Ed Miliband ordered the operator of the National Energy System to 'investigate' the power outage that brought Heathrow to a halt
Smoke golds from the electrical substation that exploded, forcing the full closure of Heathrow Airport
The substation fire led to traveling chaos, forced with passengers to camp on Heathrow while waiting for the flights to resume
A rating of stranded couple in the Heathrow terminal Five belonged to the hundreds of thousands of passengers who hindered the fire
The probe will probably concentrate on why Heathrow depends on such a limited and aging electricity infrastructure.
The ability to work depends on only three electricity stations. If someone fails completely, the power it offers cannot be replaced without long delays.
It was a vulnerability that Jacobs emphasized in a report that, commissioned by a proposal in 2014, expanded the northern runway of Heathrow in 2014.
The report said: 'Apart from the management of delivery and grant services, which are outside the control of the airport, the responsibility for the management of electricity supply risk lies at the airport and companies that are active from the airport.
“Although some services can be temporarily supported with backups from generator or battery, the most important weakness is the most important transmission line connections to the airport.”
The report said that the airport seems to be 'sufficient provision of utility infrastructure' but added: 'Dropping the functions for passengers, luggage and aircraft processing can cause and the closing of areas with affected terminals or possibly the entire airport may require.'
The Chief Executive of Heathrow Thomas Woldbye said yesterday that he was proud of the response from the airport to the chaos.
He added: 'Our systems are not designed to provide the entire airport with power … I was not shocked by the fact that we have no backup force for every system at the airport. That would require a separate power plant of a large format to always be stand -orby. '
Woldbye insisted: “The same would happen at other airports.”
But other large hubs have plowed millions in stimulating power supplies. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Airport in the US, the world's busiest, spent $ 100 million to build 20 backup generators after it had lost the electricity in 2017.
13,000 solar panels on the roof are also installed on John F Kennedy Airport in New York as part of a 'micro-grid' that will offer half of the daily activities on its new terminal operations.
Willie Walsh, former boss of British Airways who now leads to the IATA Aviation Trade, said that the collapse on Friday was 'another case of Heathrow who was disappointed by travelers and airlines'.
He asked: “How is it that the critical infrastructure of national and worldwide interest is completely dependent on a single power source without an alternative?”
British Airways said yesterday that it would be expected to run 85 percent of his flights.
National Grid said that it “made changes to” improve the resilience levels of our network. “
Experts warned that passengers receive reimbursements, but that the compensation is not paid.
Huge flames come from the substation, causing gigantic clouds of smoke in the air
Heathrow's chairman Lord Paul Deighton said that an internal assessment to the power outage will be challenged by former worker transport secretary Ruth Kelly, aimed at the airport crisis management plans
The regulations for passenger rights state that if a flight is canceled for whatever reason, the airline must offer a full reimbursement or a flight to the next available alternative, even if it is with a rival airline.
But disruption caused by fire, bad weather or other 'extraordinary circumstances' does not entitle passengers to compensation.
Liz Steele said it was 'devastating' to miss the graduation of her youngest son Paddy at Stirling University on Friday. She said, “I have been with every other graduation that my children had and I just thought I would be there.”
