Interim report into Heathrow power outage after fire to be published
More than 270,000 air passenger journeys were disrupted after the airport was closed to all flights.
An interim report into the power outage caused by a substation fire that shut Heathrow Airport will be published on Thursday.
The airport was closed to all flights until about 6pm on Friday March 21 after a power outage caused by a fire at a nearby electricity substation, which started late the previous night.
This disrupted more than 270,000 air passenger journeys.
In the immediate aftermath of the fire, the National Energy System Operator was ordered by Energy Secretary Ed Miliband to investigate what happened and provide its initial findings within six weeks.
The interim report will focus on “establishing the timeline and sequence of events of the outage, explain the roles and responsibilities of the key stakeholders involved, and outline areas of further investigation required to deliver the final report by the end of June 2025”, NESO said.
Last month MPs were told Heathrow Airport had been warned about its power supply in the days before the incident.
Nigel Wicking, chief executive of Heathrow Airline Operators Committee, which represents airlines that use the west London airport, said a “couple of incidents” had made him concerned.
He told the Transport Select Committee that he spoke to the Team Heathrow director on March 15 about his power concerns, and the chief operating officer and chief customer officer on March 19.
He said: “It was following a couple of incidents of, unfortunately, theft of wire and cable around some of the power supply that, on one of those occasions, took out the lights on the runway for a period of time.
“That obviously made me concerned and, as such, I raised the point I wanted to understand better the overall resilience of the airport.”
Heathrow insisted after the hearing that Mr Wicking was referring to matters which had “no relation” to the North Hyde substation which caught fire.
An airport source said: “To draw a comparison between these incidents is irresponsible.”
Mr Wicking said the shutdown cost airlines £60 million to £100 million.
Heathrow is Europe’s largest airport, with more than 83.9 million passengers travelling through its terminals in 2024.
This was thought to be the worst disruption at Heathrow since December 2010 when thousands of Christmas getaway passengers camped in the terminals because of widespread cancellations caused by snow.
In April that year, air travel was grounded across Europe because of an ash cloud caused by a volcanic eruption in Iceland.
The NESO North Hyde Review Interim Report will be published at 7am on Thursday.
