The flights to Heathrow Airport of London slowly began to come back after 18 hours of interruption after the big fire in electrical substation and subsequent power outage.
The first plane landed at Heathrow Airport after the big fire that closed Europe’s busiest air hub.
It is about British Airways aircraft, whose wheels pressed on the landing runwayyesterday (21.03.2025) shortly after 20:00 (Greek time).
First flight lands at London Heathrow Airport since the power outage that led to cancellation of all flights.
British Airways A380 G-XLEJ diverted earlier this morning to London Gatwick from Singapore.
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Heathrow had canceled all flights yesterday, but was able to repeat some after the electricity was restored.
POWER HAS BEEN RESTORED TO THE TERMINALS AT LONDON HEATHROW.
Watch the first flight to land at Heathrow after 20 hours of closure:BA A380 (G-XLEJ)—taxis to the gate following a flight from Gatwick.
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The full operation expected to start today (22.03.2025) in the morning based on the latest updatesbut the inconvenience is expected to last for days.
The airport said it hoped to “work completely tomorrow (today) and will provide further information soon”. He added that his teams worked “uninterruptedly from the incident to ensure a rapid recovery”.
More than 1,300 flights to and from Heathrow were affected, he said Flightradar Flight Tracking Service. The impact is likely to take several daysas passengers try to reschedule their travels and airlines are working to reinstall aircraft and crews.
Questions for the world’s second largest airport
The big question remains how such a critical infrastructure as an airport and even the second largest airport on the planet can be found outside the overall network of a fire.
The CEO of British Airways, Sean Doyletold reporters yesterday afternoon that the situation at the airport is something “unprecedentedness“, Saying that he has not seen an airport interruption on such a scale for many years.
Airport sources reported that There are spare electricity systemsBut these are designed to deal with emergencies – such as when an aircraft has a problem. Not sufficient for the entire airport and even so large and in full operation.
Obviously, at some point answers should be provided or alternative plans to deal with corresponding emergencies. What is already being discussed is whether other critical infrastructures are just as vulnerable to power outage, such as after the great fire.
Flights to and from London’s Heathrow Airport were canceled Friday after a fire at a nearby substation knocked out power to Europe’s busiest airport, disrupting travel plans around the world.
Footage posted to social media showed huge flames coming from the facility. pic.twitter.com/9kbcllnISC
— The Associated Press (@AP) March 21, 2025
All these questions are raised with even greater emphasis on why we are in a phase where infrastructure security issues Due to Russo-Ukrainian conflictthey are at the top of the European agenda suddenly, as there are fears about these Russian hybrid attacks.
For the time being There are no signs to refer to sabotage.
However, as the relevant officials point out, they approach this open -minded investigation, open to all scenarios.
CEO Heathrow: Airport cannot be protected 100% from certain incidents
The CEO of Heathros, Thomas Waldby stated that Heathros Airport cannot be guarded 100% by some emergenciesafter the fire in a substation that put off the airport power supply.
“This (the power supply) is a bit weak,” Waldby told reporters outside the airport. “But of course from unexpected some sizes we cannot guard 100% and this is one of them.”
After apologizing to all those who were suffering and thanked all those who participated in the restoration of the airport operation, Waldby described the incident, which caused a power loss equivalent to “”a medium -sized city“As“unprecedentedness».
Power station near Heathrow in flames – and no, I don’t believe in coincidences.
A substation near London’s Heathrow Airport caught fire, shutting down one of the busiest airports in the world. Thousands of homes are now without electricity. The cause is “unknown,” but… pic.twitter.com/Ut4hxYx5QO
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Trying to explain why it took so much time to handle Heathrow the issue, Woldby said that System closure and re -launch requires a lot of timeand that in fact, the airport recovers’fast enough»Given the number of systems involved.
In terms of spare systems, Woldby revealed that Heathrow has three substitutes with a spare transformer, but one of them also spoiled.
Thus his teams had to restructure the airport’s power supply, which meant that had to restart and try out ‘thousands of systems’.
In answering, finally, Who will pay the cost of interruptionWaldby said there are procedures for it, “and that the airport has no” obligations in force “for incidents such as what happened today.