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Heathrow’s management was warned of potential substation fires days before the blaze that triggered the airport’s closure last month.
Nigel Wicking, chief executive of the Heathrow Airline Operators’ Committee, told the House of Commons transport select committee on 2 April that he had raised concerns about the resilience of the airport’s sub-station prior to the blaze on 21 March.
He said he had spoken to Heathrow’s chief operating officer and chief customer officer two days before the fire, following a ‘couple of incidents’ of theft of wire and cable around the power supply, which had taken out the lights on the runway for a ‘period of time’.
The fire consumed the substation early in the morning of 21 March, leading to a power cut, the airport’s closure for a day, and the cancellation of more than 1,300 flights.
Heathrow Airport CEO Thomas Woldbye said in an interview with the Financial Times that installing a more resilient power system to prevent a repeat of the outage could cost up to £1bn.
He added that Heathrow has sufficient backup power in onsite diesel generators to maintain power supplies for critical facilities, such as air traffic control towers, but not to keep the entire airport operating.
John Pettigrew, CEO of National Grid, said that power was always available from two adjacent substations unaffected by the fire.
However, a need for Heathrow’s engineers to reconfigure the power supply and test critical safety systems led to the closure of the entire airport.
Heathrow and Secretary of State for Energy Ed Miliband have both commissioned inquiries into the incident.
