London’s Heathrow airport hops to resume full operations later tonight Australian time. UK’s busiest travel hub was forced to close due to a major power cut caused by a fire at a nearby electrical substation. The airports CEO has apologised for the travel disruptions and is promising to get its systems back online as soon as possible.
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00:00The blaze that brought Europe's busiest airport to a standstill.
00:06Underneath the flames, an electrical substation.
00:09The fire involved a transformer comprising of 25,000 litres of cooling oil fully alight.
00:16This created a major hazard due to the still high voltage equipment and the nature of the oil-fuelled fire.
00:24A few hundred metres away, Heathrow's terminals were plunged into darkness
00:29and the travel plans of hundreds of thousands of people thrown into chaos.
00:34Tori Dunzello was travelling from the US to London for her father's funeral, but the plane turned back.
00:40So we're already feeling pretty upset as it is, and then on top of it, this has been quite traumatic.
00:50Heathrow bosses announced the airport would close for a full day, affecting more than 1,300 flights.
00:56We're basically stranded. We were going on our honeymoon and we just can't go.
01:02We may have lost the whole holiday, but we have travel insurance, so we'll just re-book for another time.
01:08The day's Qantas flights from London were cancelled and the airline's incoming planes from Singapore and Perth
01:14were diverted to Paris, with travellers finishing their journeys by bus.
01:18Other carriers sent their passengers to airports around Europe too.
01:22Everyone's a bit tired, everyone's a bit cranky. There was no guidance as to where to go to get back to a new hotel and flights.
01:31The power cuts also affected 60,000 homes surrounding Heathrow.
01:36I happen to live just across the road and it's quite a thriving area, so to have a power outage like this,
01:42it has been quite daunting and none of us are prepared really.
01:47The UK's electricity provider, the National Grid, has described this event as unprecedented.
01:53But questions are being asked about why the power supply to Europe's biggest airport relied on just one substation
02:00and why any backup systems didn't kick in.
02:04In any investigation we need to identify how this sort of infrastructure has been planned in this way so that it's so vulnerable.
02:12Counter-terror police are involved in the investigation, but say that's just a precaution.
02:18There's no reason at all for anybody to be concerned or alarmed in relation to the fire at the substation.
02:23For travellers, the biggest concern is getting back in the air.
02:27Some British Airways flights have resumed and Heathrow says it hopes to have a full service tomorrow, but that'll be a challenge.
02:35With planes, pilots, passengers strewn right across Europe and stuck in various places in North America, Africa, the Middle East, Asia,
02:45it is going to be a nightmare trying to get the schedules back on.
02:50A nightmare that could take days and cost millions.