Reply With QuoteYou may be surprised how many companies have single points of failure, and not just in terms of power!Originally Posted by noTAGlove
It’s about doing things down to a price rather than up to a standard.
Amazed that LHR has a single point of failure which can shutdown the whole airport for an indeterminate durarion! Who signed off those risk assessments?
My son is due back from Bangkok later this weekend; that may be a challenge.
I am abroad with the wife, but luckily flying back to Gatwick.
You may be surprised how many companies have single points of failure, and not just in terms of power!
It’s about doing things down to a price rather than up to a standard.
Best Regards - Peter
I'd hate to be with you when you're on your own.
Whilst keeping an open mind about the cause, agree it seems odd that a single point of failure can shut down an airport.
I thought the grid was, well you know, a grid, so that single points of failure could be isolated and worked around.
I bet this never happened when it was a coal fired airport… ;-)
And the M25/A3 junction is closed once again this weekend so it’s going to be a nightmare on the roads west of London. FFS
Just turned to the news and flight radar - a prev unseen view!
When quantitative risk assessments are used - that chance of 1x10 to the -6 …………… can actually occur.
One in a million years? The current event says that the frequency is >1x10-2
I'd love to see that risk assessment calculation and the layers of protection LHR has in place for the huge financial and reputational damage.
Just shut the place down and figure it out on the fly!
I hope they have a better disaster recovery plan.
The SAS (Scandinavian Air Services) announcement of cancellations caused some confusion at Sky. The Guardian and Reuters were also caught out
I hadn’t read anything on it, just the BBC headline, but yes 10-2 is not a figure I would be relying on without at least one backup.
Priceless!!The SAS (Scandinavian Air Services) announcement of cancellations caused some confusion at Sky. The Guardian and Reuters were also caught out
Fortunately the Scottish Ambulance Service continues to operate normally.The SAS (Scandinavian Air Services) announcement of cancellations caused some confusion at Sky. The Guardian and Reuters were also caught out
Probably because there are no safety consequences and potential for loss of life, where adequate protection layers (backups) would have to be demonstrated to the relevant safety authority, and the layers of protection frequently tested.
For financial/reputational impacts, it appears down to the judgement of the operator of LHR, and whatever they assumed on their risk spreadsheets.
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Exactly that- a panel with the objective of 'making it fly' at a budget - rather than realism.
Be interesting to see the immediate cost, and the long term business loss.
How do they get those jobs?The SAS (Scandinavian Air Services) announcement of cancellations caused some confusion at Sky. The Guardian and Reuters were also caught out
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
One for the pilots on here.
The fire is 1 mile north of the approach and there's been a large column of smoke. The wind has been just north of east since early this morning, ie towards the runways. Might this have affected the decision to close the airport?
If they feel it's safe to reopen this afternoon I'm sure that they will. Closing until midnight allows everyone to re-plan their operations etc rather than keeping them waiting for an unknown (variable) period.
Just my take on the situation. I may be very wide of the mark.
Nothing to do with the smoke (they land at night or in fog after all)One for the pilots on here.
The fire is 1 mile north of the approach and there's been a large column of smoke. The wind has been just north of east since early this morning, ie towards the runways. Might this have affected the decision to close the airport?
If they feel it's safe to reopen this afternoon I'm sure that they will. Closing until midnight allows everyone to re-plan their operations etc rather than keeping them waiting for an unknown (variable) period.
Just my take on the situation. I may be very wide of the mark.
There is no power at the airport so nothing is working, you can’t even plug in a kettle.
The facilities maintenance guys, people doing fit outs, etc have gone home
Not sure jet engines breath properly in smoke, though?
But - I think it's all down to lack of power for essential and non-essential systems.
If it reopens at midnight. Presumably that is in National Grid's, rather than the operator of Heathrow's control.
Oh to be a fly on the the wall in the disaster recovery centre. I bet you it is headless chickens, with no backup plan for this scenario.
It would make a good documentary to counter those puff pieces on Heathrow life.
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Heard mutterings on the inter web that Heathrow's electricity backup systems have been removed because they ran on diesel, and replaced with bio-mass generators which couldn't replace the grid but only run alongside it. If true Ed Milliwatt's fingerprints are probably all over it.
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
Link:
...A Heathrow spokesperson said: "Whilst fire crews are responding to the incident, we do not have clarity on when power may be reliably restored.
"We expect significant disruption over the coming days and passengers should not travel to the airport under any circumstances until the airport reopens.
"We will provide an update when more information on the resumption of operations is available. We know this will be disappointing for passengers and we want to reassure that we are working as hard as possible to resolve the situation."
Yeah - those things are dire, and usually feature some wee rotweiler of a woman who struts about with a handheld radio - singlehandedly keeping Heathrow open (by her own telling).
Just wait for all the whining from passengers with no travel insurance............... I might even switch on the news later - just for that!
That makes no sense because backup system operates so infrequently they have almost zero impact on GWP.
Conspiracy theories are in full force though.
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One thing we can be certain of is that in times such as this, so called ‘bad actors’ will be stoking the fire (pardon the pun) to push whatever agenda it is that they’re tasked with.
I’m surprised I haven’t read that it must have been all the Tesla owners of Hounslow plugging in to charge that overloaded the substation…
The reality is that our old creaking infrastructure chose this time to let go, and that’s it.
For an airport the size of Heathrow, you’d need multiple commercial generators to be installed (and maintained) to ensure seamless operation, a quick google shows that Atlanta airport installed 20+ generating 65,000 kW to keep them operational after an underground cable fire killed their power. No idea what Heathrow would need.
If you have backup generators that are capable of running the airport systems and replace them with generators designed only to 'augment' the power from the grid not replace it, it makes perfect sense that this would happen in the event of a power outage.
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
I’d be amazed if one of the first things that Labour did in the first few months of gaining power was to ban diesel and implement a biomass backup system at Heathrow.
I think there’s the potential for a lot of chain pulling here, hopefully some actual facts will emerge over the next few days.
Edit: I’m also reading that Heathrow’s backup generators are co-located at the site of the fire, which makes sense as they’d be feeding power into the interconnects that supply the airport? It also could put them out of action as well though of course.
Last edited by Tooks; 21st March 2025 at 12:14.
It’s very strange here in West London
Very quiet, normally I don’t notice the planes but today I have noticed them not being there.
Transformer oil might have been made slightly less toxic over the years, but I remember it as being particularly nasty stuff. 25cubic mtrs of the stuff !
'25,000 litres of cooling oil alight' in Hayes substation fire, London fire brigade says
London fire brigade is giving a press briefing just now, updating on its response to the incident.
Deputy commissioner Jonathan Smith says the service received over 200 calls to a fire, which involved a transformed “comprising of 25,000 litres of cooling oil, fully alight.”
He says this created “a major hazard due to the still live high voltage equipment and the nature of the oil fueled fire.”
We are due to fly Tuesday to Miami with Virgin, will have to wait for them to contact us see what going on. We are staying with friends so it not going to put us out to much.
They used to use polychlorinated biphenyl which is pretty nasty - toxic and bioaccumulative. Recent advances see the use of high flashpoint mineral based stuff.
Depends on how old the installation was.
When you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks long into you.........
Just been advised our flight has been cancelled- shame really as we have at least one night more here in St Lucia. Oh dear!
How are the roads today in West London?
Same same, full of pot holes and uber drivers…
Traffic is the same as any Friday
Last edited by Sinnlover; 21st March 2025 at 12:52.
I think you're right. Net Zero was being bandied around in 2019-2022.
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
There must be more to this outage than a single point of failure. i.e. surely there are multiple substations for Heathrow, e.g. 1 to the North, one to the south, 1 per terminal, etc etc.
I've got a client that runs a large 24/7 sauce making factory, so they have 2 grid connections that come out of oppsite ends of their site and connect to 2 differnt substations i.e. 1 North of the site and 1 South of the site.
Heathrow is so big and critical to UK Infrastructure it shouldn't need generators, it just needs to have it's own "grid" with multiple feeds from the National Grid.
You make a good point. See also The Technical Failures No One’s Talking About in this link.
Is simple complacency the explanation? I have the situation with the US's bridge infrastructure in mind...link...where the NTSB have found 68 to be in need of inspection / review / remediation.
Phew. When it comes to critical infrastructure, HP sauce-making is really only one below keeping Lords open.
All the flight plans are computerised.
I don’t know how many planes are airborne at anyone time on the planet but I believe this is a domain where AI will be spectacularly effective.
Some flights managed to land at airports that had an available window (a flight from SA landed in Barcelona for example) but many turned back ( from the US, even one from Delhi who was halfway across).
AI will be able to adjust all flights plans to increase those available windows, by speeding up/slowing down some planes to minimise disruption and costs.
Last edited by Saint-Just; 21st March 2025 at 15:32.
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
I was due to be on BA142 from Delhi to London this morning but my plans changed and this trip got pushed back by a couple of weeks. Lucky for once! I think it got diverted to Germany in the end.
If anyone is caught up in this and struggling with BA drop me a PM and I might be able to provide some advice (thankfully I don’t work for them, but have wasted too much of my life on their planes so know their creaking systems far too well). Happy to help if I can
Lady luck very much in your side there!
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LHR departures are still showing all flights as cancelled but now carries this message:
Following an earlier power outage, Heathrow is now safely able to restart flights.
To maintain the safety of our passengers and colleagues, Heathrow will running a reduced operation prioritising repatriation and relocation of aircraft.
Passengers should contact their airline for further information. We apologise for the inconvenience.
BBC News lists BA flights that are expected to leave after 19h00.
A number of general aviation / PPL pilots have taken the opportunity to fly over Heathrow and London today
It’s quite nice to see aircraft not often seen over London in the sky.
A Diamond Twin Star has just gone over and earlier a very old Piper Archer flew over
Just noticed this as well
Last edited by Sinnlover; 21st March 2025 at 18:51.
I'll bet DOGE and Musk had a hand in this somehow.
Nah...they're too busy making sure that Musky gets the contracts for FAA ATC infrastructure and avionics on the F-47 etc.
It's still very peaceful here... not hearing any flights going yet.
Roads have been surprisingly quiet today making my journey too and from work much easier than normal ...
The latest from the SAS:
How do they get the job? I mean really, how?The latest from the SAS:
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
It seems normal service has resumed in terms of number of flights.
Much busier and noisier than yesterday.
What do like you mean, the intern on unpaid work experience, or the newly minted journo straight out of university on her/his first researcher job?
Not all are a wise old codger like yourself.
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And neither would be expected to know the difference between the SAS Regiment and SAS Airlines? I find that pretty amazing.
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
Hey now OOK give em a break, not everyone knows the colour of the boat house at Hereford.
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