Ruth Cadbury MP, chair of 
House of Commons transport committee, said they would quiz the companies involved “once the dust settles”, adding: “We need to ask serious questions about resilience and how we can ensure nothing like this happens again at #Heathrow or other airports.” #fire #CNI #resilience
https://www.thetimes.com/article/26c1cdb8-972e-4154-bf84-291c015a6c75?shareToken=749b90f84b150ff56cbfc2ab161700b1
#BBCNews - How did a single fire bring down Europe's busiest airport?
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdjy0g01z1po
#Heathrow
Today's top ten tag trends:
10: #komoot
9: #VendrediLecture
8: #WindowFriday
7: #heathrow
6: #FensterFreitag
5: #severance
4: #glueasongpoemorlimerick
3: #JukeboxFridayNight
2: #hitandmiss
1: #totp
Heathrow Airport (EGLL) in London, United Kingdom is closed for the day. There was a fire at an electric substation nearby knocking out electricity.
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cly24zvvwxlt
- - -
L'aéroport Heathrow (EGLL) à Londres, Royaume-Uni est fermé pour la journée. Il y a eu un incendie dans une sous-station électrique à proximité qui a coupé l'électricité.
Late Stage Capitalism has critically exposed our nations to attack. Our systems are not robust, due to cuts they do not have slack for when emergencies happen, but the Shareholders got their payout, and that's all that matters.
London's Heathrow Airport closed Friday as nearby fire causes "significant power outage"
—@CBSNews
｢ London's Metropolitan Police said there was "currently no indication of foul play," but that counterterrorism police would be leading the investigation into the substation fire that shut down Britain's most important airport ｣
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/heathrow-airport-london-closes-power-outage/
BBC: Heathrow shuts: 'We don't know what's happening next - it's chaos'
"...Passengers who were on flights already in the air have told the BBC of the disruption that ensued after they were diverted to other airports, or turned back to where they had departed from. ..."
Just seen the news.
Once again the UK shows itself on the world stage for the clown state it is.
#Heathrow. A major piece of UK infrastructure had no contingency plan for a power cut!
Laughable.
6/6
Which brings me to the point of this little spiel.
The UK electrical transmission and distribution networks are in a shocking (pun intended!) state.
Especially the distribution network.
The UK electrical grid is a miracle of engineering. For the last few decades it's been held together by ingenuity, tenacity and luck, while the disgusting leeches we've sold it to suck every last drop of money they can out of it.
And you know how you can make more money? cut back on maintenance. Cut back on asset replacements. Cut back on staff. Sweat the assets.
I'm not saying lack of maintenance caused this. How could we know? But as someone who works on the grid, I'm not surprised by it, put it that way.
Just like the rest of this rapidly declining country, the grid is run for the sole purpose of corporate cash extraction. And it makes me sick.
5/6
What caused it?
Who knows?
If I were placing a bet on why a transformer failed, and with no other information, I would always put my money on a tapchanger fault.
A tapchanger is a device that lets you change the output voltage of a transformer, and it's one of the few mechanical parts subject to wear and tear they have. They need regular maintenance.
I've seen people speculating about sabotage. Now as someone in the industry, I am acutely aware how easy it would be to cripple the grid by hitting a few vulnerable locations, but honestly transformers fail all the time. This one just happened to be in a high profile spot.
4/6
I would expect that they will try and restore power through switching operations well before that.
What that entails in basic terms is you connect the load that was served by this transformer to a different transformer. The UK network is built with redundant inter-connectivity for this very reason.
The issue with doing this of course is that you are then potentially overloading the transformer you switch to, so this can only be a short term solution.
Edit: And they have:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cly24zvvwxlt?post=asset%3A0c050d46-7098-4048-99e2-7a5e733137c6#post
3/6
Recovery efforts then.
Not that long ago, I was part of a team that responded to exactly this sort of catastrophe.
Our record for replacing a failed transformer was four days. That was remove the old one, install and commission the new one. And that was a 33kV, so quite a lot smaller.
When there's been a fire, you can't just start working. The site will have to be made safe, that takes time. You're going to need cranes, haulage, oil tankers, labour. It's not a trivial task.
You can't move a transformer in one piece. The cooler banks and conservator, the A-frame for the radiators, the pipe work (and there can be a lot of pipework) all has to be dismantled, and then the new one built on site.
2/6
Substations, and the transformers inside them, are basically the links in the chain the make up the UK grid.
Power is generated at power stations, and moved around the country at extremely high voltage, 400,000 volts (400kV).
This is then "stepped down" at a substation to 132kV, then stepped down again to 33kV at the next sub, then again to 11kV at the next, and finally to 410/240V that we all rely on when we stick a plug in the wall.
(Yes, I'm aware of all the other voltages. There's a character limit)
When a transformer fails, it takes out everything below it in the chain. And obviously, the further up the chain the failure, the more stuff downstream is affected.
Few thoughts on the substation fire at Heathrow. 1/6
From the limited information available it looks like fault has caused one of the transfomers serving the site to burst into flames.
Apparently National Grid (the transmission side, not the DNO) are involved, so that suggests we're talking about a bigger transformer, probably a 132 kV unit or bigger.
For the un-initiated, you have to understand that when I say "Transformer" I'm talking about something weighing north (possibly well north) of 40,000 kg , full of thousands of litres of highly flammable oil.
If you've ever seen the aftermath of a large transformer going up, you know how serious this is.
Genuine question... is this actually a thing? I don't think I've ever been aware of a substation having a generator? #heathrow #infrastructure
#Heathrow Airport is closed because of an electrical fire.
Heathrow is too big for other airports to accommodate the flights.
So why are they planning to make Heathrow even bigger?
Heathrow is too big.
So how safe is our critical national infrastructure in the UK?
We don’t yet know the cause of an electricity substation fire at Hayes that feeds #Heathrow. Could be:
- Poor maintenance
- Overload of local grid
- Arson
- Weather conditions
- Terrorist attack
- Attack by a hostile international state
Airport safety has changed hugely since 9/11, but have other routine aspects of maintaining our infrastructure had the same concern during that time? And where does the responsibility sit?
#FensterFreitag is now trending across Mastodon
#Heathrow is now trending across Mastodon
Heathrow Closed!
London's largest airport, Heathrow, has been closed due to a fire at an electrical substation
Will reopen Friday night.
One of the world's busiest airports has been closed due to power surges.
Passengers have been advised not to travel to the airport and to contact their airline.
#AureFreePress #News #press #headline #london #Heathrow #airport #fire #Breaking #BreakingNews
comment occuper les enfants pendant la fermeture de l'aéroport de Londres-Heathrow ?
Fred Lyon
tags : apprendre à évacuer un avion dès le plus jeune âge, #London #education #photography #heathrow
