Heathrow Airport is shut until Friday night

[Ozgirl76]

And my husband is due to fly home to Australia on Friday evening. I predict chaos.
Airport is saying that people should not travel to Heathrow and should contact their airlines.

It could be Russia. It could also be the results of poor investment into nationally sensitive infrastructure that has been left in the hands of profit focused organisations who only serve their share holders. It could even be bored kids setting fire to stuff, or some form of domestic terrorism.

We won't know for a long time.

But those who are saying "it definitely isn't Russia" are either hopelessly naive or on a Russian bot farm somewhere.

I'd guess by using the onboard WiFi lol

The problem with other airports is often not just linked to the airport. Bournemouth can handle quite big planes, but the airport itself is tiny and the road network is poor - so whilst the runway itself can accommodate larger planes, the rest of the airport is lacking. I’m sure there are other similar airports, which is why the reliance on London airports is so high

Yes.

And this is before they expand even further which the government seems to want.

Yes. Single flights get cancelled.

Not an entire day’s worth of flights from your home hub and planes being re-routed because they’re unable to land. Not only are your planes in the wrong place, so are your crew and pilots.

It’s a completely difference scenario from the 18.55 to Larnaca being cancelled because of a fault on the plane.

Ed Milliband on Radio 4:

“There's obviously been a catastrophic fire at this substation," he says, adding "it appears to have knocked out a back-up generator as well as a substation itself."

"We will have to look hard at the causes, and also the protection and the resilience that is in place for major, major institutions like Heathrow,"

I don't think years of under investment in our infrastructure can be blamed on Russia.
Normally you would expect an airport to be supplied by two separate substations so if one goes off line it can still operate. It might be very convenient to blame bad actors but I used to be a civil engineer and still have friends in the field and honestly the UK is suffering from really poor decision making.
I blame the private sector and UK govt. But that's not as sexy as all this war talk.

Do you know- I'd love to sit somewhere and be paid to MN all day.

War talk isn’t sexy, and if this does turn out to be Russia - alongside the sabotage of an oil tanker a few days before we want to hope the government have a plan for a war with Russia via the back door. This is precisely how Russia operates.

Then the poor sods will be landing to a shut M25

Bristol is expanding but my god the outlying route into the airport is a joke. One B road to get to the airport, last time I flew it took nearly an hour just to get to the turning for the airport . Until that is addressed, I can't see how it can expand.

I feel so sorry for all these people affected by this, a total nightmare.

It affects local residents and infrastructure too

The radio is saying that the normal backup generators at the substation or Heathrow, not sure as was doing school run, were removed because they were diesel powered and not in line with the net zero commitment.

whoever made that decision needs to be sacked.

Flew overnight from Cape Town and we were diverted to Madrid. Just waiting now to see what will happen. I miss my bed!

@ChardonnaysBeastlyCatwondering what you mean here by government wanting to them to expand further

Lol perhaps read the previous 7 pages lol

Heathrow airport closed after substation fire causes ‘significant’ power outage | News | Flight Global

I agree the smaller regional airports like Cardiff, Exeter, Manchester, Liverpool, Blackpool, Doncaster/Sheffield all have long runways and could take even more flights! THe government needs a regional airport strategy but Keir wont listen to this as its probably not aligned with net zero,

Third Runway is back on the cards despite all the green promises.

Local infrastructure can’t cope as it is.
Who will be paying? The taxpayers while Heathrow’s dividends go to their foreign shareholders.

This isn't Russia - it can't be unless they find its a Russian agent committing arson! I dont get the conspiracy theories. How would M15/M16 prove its Russia! Let the local electricity organisation and National Grid investigate before we start speculating

Because they have also been knocked out presumably. It makes the UK look pretty weak tbh. We could easily see other major disruptions if this an attack.

Surely this would trigger NATO article 5 if found out to be Russia? I don't think the Government will admit it is Russia because Starmer likes harsh words and pomp but will dive into his bunker at the first sign of trouble. This will be played down like the tanker.

Where are all the satirical cartoonists?

The contingency was diesel powered back up generators but they removed them to be green! What a fuck up!

Does anyone on the thread live in the area?
Heard on the radio that houses in the area only lost power briefly and are mostly restored now, yet Heathrow still has no power?? It makes no sense.

The fire knocked the backup out as well

There's a fantastic musical based on this! Come from Away.