Heathrow 'warned about power supply' days before shutdown

Heathrow Airport was forced to adjacent wholly for a time past period aft a occurrence broke retired astatine a substation supplying it with power. Photo: STR / AFP
Source: AFP

Heathrow airdrome was warned astir its powerfulness proviso successful the days earlier the full hub was unopen down owed to an outage that caused monolithic disruption, lawmakers were told connected Wednesday.

Nigel Wicking, main enforcement of Heathrow Airline Operators Committee, which represents airlines that usage the airport, said helium reported his concerns connected 2 occasions.

"It was pursuing a mates of incidents of, unfortunately, theft of ligament and cablegram astir immoderate of the powerfulness proviso that, connected 1 of those occasions, took retired the lights connected the runway for a play of time," helium told a parliamentary committee connected transport.

"That evidently made maine acrophobic and, arsenic such, I raised the constituent I wanted to recognize amended the wide resilience of the airport," helium added.

Wicking said helium spoke to the Team Heathrow manager connected March 15 and the main operating bureau and main lawsuit serviceman connected March 19.

A occurrence precocious connected March 20 astatine an energy substation astatine Hayes successful westbound London triggered the airport's implicit closure for astir of the pursuing day, affecting thousands of passengers astir the world.

The closure of Europe's busiest airdrome owed to a azygous occurrence astatine a substation has raised concerns astir its resilience.

The authorities has ordered a six-week probe into the shutdown.

In the days aft the closure the caput of the UK's nationalist grid questioned the request to adjacent the airdrome saying determination had been "enough power" to support it running.

"Losing a substation is simply a unsocial lawsuit -- but determination were 2 others available," National Grid main enforcement John Pettigrew said.

Heathrow chiefs, however, person insisted the closure was owed to the clip needed to power to the different substations and marque information checks.

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Source: AFP