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Heathrow substation fire caused by moisture in electrics: Report
- A fire at National Grid Electricity Transmission's 275kV substation near Heathrow caused a power outage that closed the airport on March 21, 2025.
- The fire resulted from a catastrophic failure of a high voltage bushing caused by moisture ingress detected in July 2018 but left unaddressed by National Grid.
- Forensic analysis by National Grid and London Fire Brigade confirmed electrical arcing ignited oil inside the transformer while the outage affected Heathrow and over 70,000 other customers.
- Ed Miliband, the Energy Minister, described the findings as "deeply concerning," highlighting that known risks had not been addressed, which has led Ofgem to launch a formal investigation into potential licence violations.
- A review chaired by Ruth Kelly, a former Cabinet Minister, outlined 28 recommendations aimed at enhancing infrastructure resilience, and efforts to put these into action are already in progress.
109 Articles
109 Articles
Report: Heathrow Emergency Was Entirely Avoidable
How much chaos can an instance of deferred maintenance cause? The UK's National Grid is finding out. A fire that shut down London's Heathrow Airport for more than 16 hours in March has been traced to a transformer fault first flagged by the local power provider seven years earlier, according...
Fire That Led to Heathrow Airport Shutdown Caused by Poor Maintenance: Report
A fire that shut down London’s Heathrow Airport in March was caused by a failure to maintain an electricity substation, an official report released July 2 states. The closure of Europe’s busiest airport cost airlines tens of millions of dollars and left thousands of passengers stranded. At the time, there was widespread speculation in the media that the fire had been caused by Russian sabotage. However, the report by the National Energy System O…
The UK's energy system operator points to "obsolete regulation" and "inadequate safety mechanisms" after the 21 March fire at one of the world's largest airports.
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