Friday 21 March was a miserable day for more than 200,000 airline passengers who were planning to fly to or from London Heathrow airport. The UK’s busiest airport closed down almost completely for the day due to a fire at an electricity substation that provides Heathrow with power.
What went wrong – and could it happen again? The National Energy System Operator (NESO) has just published its final report into the incident. National Grid is blamed for the fire that triggered the catastrophic power outage. But the report also says Heathrow was aware that such an incident would have serious consequences, and that the airport accepted the risk as a “high-impact, low-probability event”.
