Heathrow’s heads were warned of the failure of possible sub -stations days before the “airport” electricity was out of the “Airport” power outage

Heathrow’s heads were warned of the failure of possible sub -stations a few days before the airport was forced to close for a day after a major power fire.

“There are” accidents “that made him anxious – including the spotlight on a runway to be taken out.

On March 21, Heathrow was washed into chaos after a devastating electric fire was forced to close the UK airport for this day.

About 270,000 passengers were disabled after the main electrical stations at the airport exploded and are less than two miles in the Hayes suburb in West London.

Heathrow is provided with three sub -stations, but caused a large energy interruption at the airport.

The impact of the fire from one energy source raised questions about Heathrow’s plans and disasters, including Prime Minister Sir Kerr Starmer, who said it was “very concerned.”

Mr. Weeking told the chosen transportation committee that he spoke to the director of Heathrow team on March 15, about his concerns, the chief operational official and the chief customer employee on March 19.

He said: “I have already warned Heathrow of the concerns that we had regarding the sub -stations and my concern was flexibility.”

“He was following some accidents, unfortunately, stealing wires and cables around some of the energy supplies that, on one of these occasions, took out the lights on the runway for a period of time,” said Mr. Wiking, the head of the body, who represents more than 90 flying using Heathrow.

Nigel Wiking (in the photo), CEO of Haitro Airlines, told MPS to the Transport Committee that there were “accidents” that made him feel anxious.

Heathrow heads were warned of the failure of possible sub -stations a few days before the airport was forced to close for one day due to the main power outage, the deputies were informed. In the picture: Fire in the Hayes Electrical Subcomester

Electrical sub -north Hyde Al Shamal, which caused the power outage in Heathrow

“It is clear that this made me feel anxious, and in this way, I raised the point that I wanted to better understand the comprehensive flexibility of the airport.”

Mr. Weeking said he believed that Heathro 5 was ready to receive return flights to the country by “prominent morning” on the day of closure, and that “there was also an opportunity to get out of flights.”

But the CEO of Heathro Thomas and Oldby said that keeping the airport open during the power outage was “catastrophic”.

He told the committee: “It has become quite clear that we were not able to operate the airport safely in a very early time of this process, and for this reason we closed the airport,” he told the committee.

“If we did not, we would have been exposed to thousands of passengers at the airport at a high risk of personal injury, and distorted roads around the airport, because they do not forget 65,000 homes and other institutions that have been operated.

Traffic lights did not succeed, only to give you an example, many things did not succeed. Parts of the civil infrastructure did not succeed.

“So the risk of tens of thousands of people who were cut off at the airport, as we did not have a place to put them, we could not address it, could have been a catastrophic scenario.”

On March 21, Heathrow was washed into chaos after a devastating electric fire was forced to close the UK airport for the day

In the photo: Firefighters raise the remaining fire that broke out at a sub -station to supply energy to Heathro Airport in Hayes, west of London

Al -Sayyid and Oulbby told the committee that the sub -station in which the fire caught was the “largest” that served the airport, with a capacity of 70 megawatts.

When asked if some airport stations could be reopened soon, he said: “The fact that the spotlight was at Station 5, and it is completely correct, it does not mean that the station is working.

“We did not have all CCTV, we did not have fire control. Fire extinguishing systems will work … but the airport fire control systems were low, so we did not know where the systems were safe.

“All that should have been secured before we started the process.”

“I cannot guarantee you if the T5 can be opened an hour ago,” added.

“We have done everything we can to open it as quickly as possible, because we fully understand the airlines’ concerns about getting the flights that were returned home, as well as flights there.”

Mr. Wabelby said that the airport has contracts with the Scottish and Electrical Energy Company for “flexible energy groups”, and “we have to rely on the contracts we have.”

The firefighter helps extinguish a fire that broke out at a sub -station to supply Heathrow Airport – March 21, 2025

He added: Should we have more flexibility? But this, of course, comes at a very high cost, and this is the discussion with which we have with airlines, because we cannot make investments without having airlines (we agree on).

Mr. Weeking answered: ‘We are already paying enough for Heathrow. I don’t feel that we should pay more for more flexibility.

“Flexibility should be in the first place, frankly.”

In response to a question from the committee whether the procedures of 10 hours have taken to reuse Heathrow seemed flexible, Al -Sayed and Oulbby said: “I think in the shadow of such an event, which is unlikely as it was described, which is the existing flexibility. This is the existing play book.

Al -Sayyid and Oulbby told the committee that there was no “endless and smooth change to everything at the airport” and that the presidents were “still at a stage where we do not know the reason for this.”

“It was ten hours for me very long, and in fact, it looked at the time to make a decision to enter the process of 10 hours,” said Mr. Wiking.

The government requested an investigation into the fire and the power outage, while providing initial results within six weeks.