[HN Gopher] London's Heathrow Airport announces complete shutdow...
___________________________________________________________________
London's Heathrow Airport announces complete shutdown due to power
outage
Author : dfine
Score : 202 points
Date : 2025-03-21 03:31 UTC (19 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnn.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnn.com)
| viraptor wrote:
| It looks like there's a fair bit of redundancy there
| https://www.ukpowernetworksservices.co.uk/case-studies/heath...
|
| Sounds weird that one substation going down would close
| everything.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| Literally just guessing: that substation is on the train route
| to central London, which is the main public transport
| connection in and out of Heathrow. Indeed the Elizabeth tube
| line is suspended on the Heathrow branch.
|
| So perhaps the core issue isn't inability of the airport to
| operate, but of people to get in and out.
| ajb wrote:
| I doubt they would suspend flights for that. Heathrow is used
| by people from all over South England, not just London, so a
| good proportion of customers come by car. Not to mention the
| people doing transits. Also TFL has a stock of buses which
| they use if a rail line goes down.
| fredoralive wrote:
| The Piccadilly line isn't noted as suspended, presumably it
| has its own electricity feed, so there are even still
| trains you could get.
| gambiting wrote:
| Also it's not like Heathrow is on an island, in the worst
| case you could get everyone out by buses.
| supernova87a wrote:
| Lights are out in the terminals at LHR.
| https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cly24zvvwxlt
| Symbiote wrote:
| I think it's likely the Elizabeth Line branch is suspended
| because the stations are closed, and the stations are closed
| because there's no power to the buildings.
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| The Elizabeth line is fully electrified, so why wouldn't
| the issue be power to the trains themselves rather than the
| stations?
| Symbiote wrote:
| Other trains are running on the main line through the
| area. It's 25kV electrification, there's plenty of
| distance between feeder substations.
|
| National Rail say [1] "An unadvertised shuttle service is
| running from Heathrow Terminals to London Paddington to
| ensure customers and colleagues can leave the airport" so
| trains can and are running, they just don't want flight
| passengers to go to the airport.
|
| [1] https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/service-
| disruptions/heathrow-...
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| Ah, thanks, that makes sense.
| fredoralive wrote:
| UK Power Networks are the local network operator for London and
| the South East. The substation that has gone boom is a National
| Grid one, so it's presumably affecting things upstream of local
| substations. I'm surprised there's a single point of failure at
| this level though, you'd think Heathrow would be considered
| important enough to have multiple feeds at a national grid
| level.
| manarth wrote:
| The substations decribed in the power network case study above
| are for local distribution - 33kV stepping down to 11kV (x2)
| and 11kV to 415V (x12).
|
| The substation on fire (North Hyde) is a 275kV major
| distribution substation.
|
| That's a fairly significant distribution loss in itself (not
| just Heathrow but also 16,000 homes), and rebalancing the
| distribution will need careful coordination - flipping the
| switch on a load the size of Heathrow would then imbalance the
| network for the new distribution supply site.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > not just Heathrow but also 16,000 homes
|
| You are off by a large number. More like 62,000 customers
| affected (although "only" 4,800 are actually without power
| right now)[1].
|
| Also that area is more than just "homes". There is a lot of
| heavy elecrical load commercial stuff going on in that area
| too.
|
| [1]https://powertrack.ssen.co.uk/powertrack#QQ0573
| Tempest1981 wrote:
| 16,000 homes * 4 people per home = 64,000 customers
|
| Could that explain it?
| DeathArrow wrote:
| They didn't have enough solar panels on the roof?
| blitzar wrote:
| It would be too unsightly to put solar panels on those large
| flat shed roofs.
| thinkingemote wrote:
| You joke but make a good point, most major installations have
| backup diesel powered generators to provide power for a certain
| limited but generous time.
|
| What happened with Heathrows generators? Did they kick in? Do
| they have any?
|
| Edits: yes they did kick in as normal
| https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/heathrow-ed-miliband-nati...
|
| Note that usually backup generators are only for essentials
| like air traffic control, landing lights, and operating
| emergency stuff.
| xrayarx wrote:
| That's what I was wondering. Strange, that they didn't plan
| to run the whole airport. Compared to construction costs and
| costs of disruption...
| blindriver wrote:
| Seems like a national security issue if there's a single point of
| failure a few miles away that can take down one of Europe's
| largest airports and global air travel.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| This was my first thought.
|
| My second thought is, UK infra is crumbling so bad, this is
| really most likely just business as usual...
| gambiting wrote:
| It's all been privatized and they don't care about anything
| other than maintaing profits so of course we're seeing the
| effects now. It's also why every single water provider in the
| UK is dumping raw sewage into our rivers and when the
| government tries to make them fix it they cry about how that
| will eat into their profits and how it's unfair.
| blitzar wrote:
| Getting bailed out by the government because you ran it
| into the ground is the plan when you buy one of these
| assets.
| ta1243 wrote:
| Privitise the profits, socialise the losses. Makes
| perfect sense.
|
| Also makes sense to pay for enough brainwashing to enable
| this.
| Devilspawn6666 wrote:
| Nope...
|
| The UK electricity grid is nationalised - it's run by the
| National Energy System Operator (NESO).
| gambiting wrote:
| The top level grid - yes. Regional operators are private.
|
| https://weownit.org.uk/public-ownership/energy
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > The UK electricity grid is nationalised
|
| That is only a very recent change though, 1 October
| 2024[1].
|
| Before that it was very much privatised, 1990-2024[2].
|
| Technically in the background I suspect you will find
| very little has changed since October 2024 since (a) not
| enough time has passed (b) things like TUPE means you
| will end up with most of the same people doing the same
| things under a different logo, at least for a little
| while until changes get phased in.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Energy_System_
| Operato...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Grid_(Great_Br
| itain)
| andrewinardeer wrote:
| This crossed my mind. Was it an adversarial foreign nation
| state undertaking sabatgoe a la French train network on the
| opening day of the Olympics?
| evgen wrote:
| Few people actually include necessary infrastructure into their
| threat model and almost no one is willing to pay the cost of
| building effective redundancy into the system. I could probably
| shut down any airport in the world with a few late-night
| firebombs tossed into the right substation.
|
| And no, it is not a national security issue. There are three
| other airports in the London region, plus RAF Norholt and RAF
| Kenly inside the M25 ring.
| smashah wrote:
| Heathrow is a significant part of the UK economy, what is
| with the dismissive attitude?
|
| I don't imagine an american being so dismissive about JFK
| being taken offline.
| evgen wrote:
| A significant part of the economy perhaps, but 'national
| security threat' is a somewhat higher bar IMHO. LHR has a
| role of convenience, but not necessity. If JFK was shut
| down for a day or two and had limited operations for
| another week it would be inconvenient but would barely
| register in the national economic stats. I am on a flight
| heading out of Heathrow on Sunday for work travel and have
| booked an alternative out of Gatwick just in case.
| Inconvenient, but not a massive problem.
|
| What will be telling here is how quickly things adapt to
| the disruption. I expect to feel more impact from the loss
| of power to businesses in the surrounding area that are
| involved in air shipment than in the flight disruptions
| (e.g. cold chain logistics and inventory management for
| just-in-time processes that warehouse near the airport.)
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > What will be telling here is how quickly things adapt
| to the disruption.
|
| Most people won't have to. The substation area covers
| 62,000 properties, but only 4,800 are actually without
| power as a result of the incident. In addition they are
| expecting restoration of power by 15:00 same-day.[1]
|
| [1] https://powertrack.ssen.co.uk/powertrack#QQ0573
| FartyMcFarter wrote:
| That link isn't working currently, and when I checked it
| earlier it was referring to an outage which started late
| yesterday night. So I'm not sure it was relevant.
| Symbiote wrote:
| According to the news reports, the fire started at
| roughly 23:30.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| UTC? ET?
| Symbiote wrote:
| Consider reading the article if you need this much detail
| on the topic.
| FartyMcFarter wrote:
| Local time.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > So I'm not sure it was relevant.
|
| It is.
|
| If you read the text on the link it very much describes
| the situation, e.g. talking about the substation.
|
| Second, the start time and other data (e.g. number of
| properties affected) correlates with that stated by the
| London Fire Brigade on their website[1]
|
| [1] https://www.london-
| fire.gov.uk/incidents/2025/march/fire-at-...
| FartyMcFarter wrote:
| Oh, I see. My apologies, for some reason I thought the
| fire started in the early morning hours.
| d1sxeyes wrote:
| I mean sure it's expensive, but economic harm (unless it's
| intentional and large-scale) is not really seen as a
| national security issue in the UK.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > Heathrow is a significant part of the UK economy
|
| Is it, really ?
|
| From Heathrow's own website[1], so we can expect figures on
| the "generous" side:
|
| "Heathrow Airport is expected to contribute approximately
| PS4.7bn to the UK economy "
|
| This incident started somewhere around midnight and is
| currently estimated to be resolved by 15:00. So let's round
| that up to "one day".
|
| PS4.7bn divided by 365 is PS12.8m
|
| Compared to say, the UK financial services sector which
| contributed PS208.2bn to the UK economy in 2023[2] where an
| equivalent day out would cost PS570m .... Heathrow's paltry
| PS12m is equivalent to a 30 minute outage in the financial
| sector.
|
| Also, to put it further into perspective - Tesco, the UK's
| biggest supermarket operator - had revenues of PS68bn last
| year...[3]
|
| [1]https://www.heathrow.com/content/dam/heathrow/web/common
| /doc... [2]https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-
| briefings/sn06... [3]
| https://companiesmarketcap.com/gbp/tesco/revenue/
| marliechiller wrote:
| Thats not really a fair comparison. Youve compared an
| entire industry to one entity within an industry. Id be
| interested to see what the numbers would be if you
| shutdown all commercial UK airports for a day. Still
| smaller I'd imagine, but at least comparable
| monkey_monkey wrote:
| Or they could compare it to an asteroid hitting the UK
| and wiping all all life within a 200 mile radius.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > Thats not really a fair comparison.
|
| If we're going to be pedantic about fair comparisons,
| then really you would need to, for example:
|
| Remove airport duty-free sales figures since that has a
| negligible effect on the UK economy, but does pad up
| their bottom line.
|
| Remove leisure passenger derived numbers. Because
| "passenger tourism contributes to the UK economy" type
| data are very much finger in the air subjective estimates
| prone to bias and massaging. For example, common scenario
| is relatives coming to stay. They stay at your house, you
| feed them at your house, their net contribution to the UK
| economy is effectively naff all apart from maybe a couple
| of museum and transport tickets.
| pjmorris wrote:
| I've flown through Heathrow a dozen or so times, and have
| spent maybe $200 in various shops and restaurants.
| Outside the airport, I spent months working on projects,
| and both I and the projects involved much more than $200.
| An analysis that includes only direct spending misses the
| overall impact.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| All right, but if Heathrow was down for a day, what would
| you do? Cancel the trip, and never go at all? Or would
| you go a day later, or through a different airport, or
| fly to Manchester and take the train?
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| Even if the airline let you, why would you travel to
| _Manchester_? That 's half a day and a PS100 train fare
| away from London. There's still Gatwick, Stansted and
| Luton in 'London', plus Cardiff, Birmingham and Bristol
| as alternatives.
|
| If money were no object even Amsterdam Schiphol or
| Brussels would make for a faster journey than Manchester!
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Hey, clueless American here. I confess I have no idea how
| far apart things are in the UK. "Closer than in the US"
| is all I've got.
| Symbiote wrote:
| It's very reasonable, and I wouldn't hesitate to do this
| if it was a business trip.
|
| Many flights have been diverted to Manchester, partly
| because airlines with flights to Heathrow also have
| flights from Manchester, but are less likely to have
| flights from the other London airports.
|
| Manchester Airport railway station is 2 minutes walk from
| the airport's main entrance, I think using a covered
| walkway, or maybe it was underground. Going to London
| takes 23/4 hours with one change, trains run every 20
| minutes.
|
| It would be more convenient to be diverted somewhere a
| bit closer, but on the scale of an intercontinental
| flight it's not a big deal.
|
| > Cardiff, Birmingham and Bristol as alternatives ...
| even Amsterdam Schiphol or Brussels would make for a
| faster journey than Manchester!
|
| Cardiff Airport to London takes 3 hours by train, Bristol
| Airport about 21/2 hours, both are less frequent.
| Amsterdam is four hours by train, Brussels is around 3
| hours.
|
| Birmingham (BHX) and East Midlands (EMA) are the only
| airports closer to London in travel time than Manchester.
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| Ah, right! Here's an approximate comparison then,
| measuring from one of the terminus stations serving
| central London, according to railway timetable data:
|
| 0h 30m - Heathrow
|
| 1h 00m - Gatwick
|
| 1h 00m - Luton
|
| 1h 30m - Stansted
|
| 2h 30m - Manchester
|
| 3h 00m - Birmingham
|
| 3h 00m - Bristol
|
| 4h 00m - Cardiff
|
| Plus Channel Tunnel trains:
|
| 2h 00m - Brussels
|
| 4h 00m - Amsterdam
|
| Looks like I was wrong about Manchester being further
| than Cardiff though!!
| masfuerte wrote:
| Birmingham airport to London is 1h 10m though there are
| slower services.
| leoedin wrote:
| By what basis are Brussels or Amsterdam closer to London
| from Manchester? Manchester is a 2 hour train ride from
| London. Brussels is similar, but there's at least an hour
| of mandatory security and waiting. Amsterdam is much
| further away.
| megamix wrote:
| Does that count only the actual airport? It doesn't count
| the potential business travellers contributing to the
| economy in different ways. Like if half of the financial
| sector were due to arrive at Heathrow, where would that
| be in the analysis?
|
| Just to downplay the importance of Heathrow through
| numbers is a bit absurd.
| bee_rider wrote:
| If half the financial sector is in the plane somehow, and
| they decide "oh, the airport has a power outage, better
| crash into the ocean instead," that might make a major
| difference. More likely they will go land at a different
| airport or delay their travel, depending on there they
| are in the process.
|
| It's just delays, not destruction.
| Ozarkian wrote:
| You missed the parent's point, which is that a
| significant fraction of people flying to London because
| they have business to do in London, and the value of
| their time is not zero. If their time is wasted, that has
| a real cost in terms of lost productivity.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I don't think I did miss their point. The loss is not the
| deletion of their productivity, it is the cost of
| shifting that productivity back by a day or so.
| monkey_monkey wrote:
| > Heathrow is a significant part of the UK economy
|
| You'll need to back up that assertion.
|
| I imagine any American who thought about it would have a
| similarly 'dismissive' attitude.
| benterix wrote:
| > I could probably shut down any airport in the world with a
| few late-night firebombs tossed into the right substation.
|
| So basically this is what Putin is trying to do - find
| vulnerable points and attack them. For now, creating
| disruption without human casualties.
| petercooper wrote:
| I used to live next to RAF Kenley, it's not really usable in
| any valuable way - it's a relic. It's for gliders only with
| no powered flight allowed. It has no facilities and is very
| uneven/roughly paved, but could probably accept landings of
| small planes or fighters in extremis. Biggin Hill would be
| used instead if you needed an airport in that immediate area.
| tomhut wrote:
| Small world, I was gliding there yesterday. Agreed, given
| the state of the runway, Biggin Hill or Redhill would be a
| better alternative.
| hackerbeat wrote:
| Yes, and it's obviously Russian sabotage.
| benterix wrote:
| It might well be, but you don't have any proof of that. In
| Lithuania it took months of investigations to catch the
| culprits, analyze all evidence and make that statement. I can
| imagine in the UK it can take even more.
| hackerbeat wrote:
| Yes, and that's exactly why they use this tactic.
| dylan604 wrote:
| In the US, they use the tactic of electing a president.
| I'd rather have no power for a few hours
| Calwestjobs wrote:
| Finishing investigation is not point in time when people
| knew it was Putnam.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| The UK is very good at sabotaging itself in order to enrich
| corporations/shareholders/politicians/oligarchs. No foreign
| influence necessary.
| Calwestjobs wrote:
| For Brexit - facebook and cambridge analytica got fined....
| that is not UK sabotaging itself. US tools are very
| successful in UK because UK uses same freaking language as
| US does.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > Seems like a national security issue if there's a single
| point of failure
|
| No. Its not.
|
| Its the fact that the decades of under-investment in power
| distribution infrastructure is coming home to roost.
|
| Its no secret there's little to no "fat" in the UK grid system.
| Hence it has difficulty coping with black-swan events such as
| this.
|
| Anyone who buys datacentre space in London knows the reason
| prices have gone through the roof in recent years. Its becasue
| the grid simply cannot get the extra capacity to where it is
| needed. And this is before energy prices started rising due to
| the UK's electricity being mostly dependent on gas (previous
| governments having sold off gas-storage facilities to build
| houses on the land instead).
|
| That's why its also a pain in the backside to build new banks
| of EV fast chargers anywhere in the UK. Getting the power there
| involves long, protracted, discussions with the grid followed
| by payments of large amounts of money and a written promise to
| the grid that you agree to load-shedding at any time if
| necessary.
|
| I suspect you will find its not a single point of failure
| either. Its just that Hayes is a high-demand area, so see above
| for lack of excess capacity .... if one site goes boom, the
| other will struggle to take on 100% load.
| apetresc wrote:
| You keep saying "No it's not" and then describing exactly
| what most people would call "a single point of failure" and
| "a national security issue" in a lot more words.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > You keep saying "No it's not" and then describing exactly
| what most people would call "a single point of failure" and
| "a national security issue" in a lot more words.
|
| What are you on about ?
|
| Its not a national security issue. Full stop. There are
| many other airports in the London area and elesewhere in
| the UK. Heathrow is a civilian airport, not a military one.
| 99% of air cargo to the UK does _NOT_ come to Heathrow.
|
| Its not a single point of failure either. Sure, for those
| _TEMPORARILY_ affected it might feel that way. But
| businesses with contingency plannign will simply invoke
| their DR plans and go elsewhere ... flights will divert,
| people will WFH instead of going the offices, people will
| have to travel to a supermarket a little bit further away.
|
| Also, regarding "single point of failure", see this
| website[1]... 62,000 customers affected but only 4,800
| without power[1]. Not quite a SPOF then is it !
|
| Also, you want guaranteed N+1 resilience at grid level, who
| do you think is going to pay for that ?
|
| Most people would be happy with the grid sorting out its
| capacity issues at N level, one thing at a time my friend.
|
| [1] https://powertrack.ssen.co.uk/powertrack#QQ0573
| Closi wrote:
| > 99% of air cargo to the UK does NOT come to Heathrow.
|
| Not even slightly true - Heathrow carries over 50% of air
| freight and is a major hub.
|
| (https://www.heathrow.com/company/cargo)
| richwater wrote:
| It's really quite incredible how people just make shit
| up, even in this board
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > Heathrow carries over 50% of air freight and is a major
| hub.
|
| Not denying it, but it does depend on what you're
| sending.
|
| For example, if you send something by DHL, it has a
| significantly greater chance of going through East
| Midlands Airport than it does Heathrow.
|
| Same for UPS and others. The bulk of their recent
| investments have been away from Heathrow.
|
| The non-Heathrow sites have better road connections, and
| more importantly for air cargo, the noise abatement rules
| at non-Heathrow sites are more relaxed.
|
| The other problem with Heathrow is that BA have their
| finger in the pies and they have too many slots, so that
| limits any growth on the independent freight side.
|
| Heathrow has effectively hit its capacity limit. That may
| or may not change if they ever build the third runway.
| Closi wrote:
| > Not denying it
|
| Your original post did though!
|
| Heathrow undoubtedly does the most air cargo. Sure
| express often comes into EMA on dedicated flights, but
| lots of freight comes in the hold of passenger aircraft,
| and that's where Heathrow is king. The lack of passenger
| traffic is undoubtedly a key reason why EMA only does
| 1/5th of Heathrow's air cargo, as as you have noted it's
| ideally located to serve a lot of the UK.
| ziddoap wrote:
| > _Heathrow is a civilian airport, not a military one._
|
| Not saying this incident is or isn't a national security
| issue, but this is not really pertinent to whether an
| incident is classified as a national security issue.
|
| National security encompasses much more than just
| military-related stuff. The "security" part of "national
| security" is using a broad definition of security (like
| "food security" isn't strictly about physically
| protecting food from damage).
| WrongAssumption wrote:
| National security definitively covers civilian
| infrastructure. In fact military defense primary purpose
| is protecting civilian restructure.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| "National security site" is not a synonym for "military
| installation."
|
| It means "critical infrastructure whose failure causes
| significant adverse effects."
|
| The UK's main airport is absolutely that.
|
| Your quote about 99% of air cargo not coming through
| Heathrow is made-up nonsense. The correct figure is
| closer to around 50% by volume and 70% by value.
|
| https://www.heathrow.com/company/cargo
|
| It's a major, major hub, not just for the UK but Europe,
| the US, and Rest of World.
| ChrisRR wrote:
| How do you say No it's not and then describe points of
| failure leading to national security issues?
| pjc50 wrote:
| So .. why are people trying to build new datacentre space in
| London rather than somewhere a bit further away and less
| expensive? Easier to put the datacentre near the power and
| run some fiber rather than the other way round, surely?
|
| The expense is unpleasant, but the money has to come from
| somewhere, and the user paying is easier to justify than all
| the other bill-payers collectively or the taxpayer.
| paganel wrote:
| Probably because of easier access to qualified workforce.
| everfrustrated wrote:
| The UK has a weird National Grid system whereby the cost of
| electricity is the same nationwide (except Scotland)
|
| So datacenters build in London as the
| connection/electricity price is same as building in rural
| areas and they'd obviously prefer being closer to users in
| London.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > why are people trying to build new datacentre space in
| London rather than somewhere a bit further away and less
| expensive?
|
| Most likely some combination of: 1. A
| chunk of the customer base (financial sector, hyperscalers
| etc.) that wants the low latency and who are price
| insensitive because of their deep pockets. 2. If
| peering matters to you, then you're limited to where the
| IXP is, which is usually only at the major London sites.
| LINX, for example, have LINX Wales, but that is not
| interconnected with LINX London, so you either need to get
| space in London or pay for fibre capacity back to London.
| 3. Fibre coverage outside large conurbations in the UK has
| traditionally been shit and to varying degrees still is.
| 4. The rural areas don't have substations ready-to-go and
| the NIMBY's come running if you propose building one or
| anything else in their backyards (see protests about new
| wind farms).
|
| Almost certainly many more things I've missed, those are
| just a few off the top of my head.
|
| There are various locations outside of Central London but
| within the M25 boundary. But YMMV when it comes to being
| any less expensive. I suspect you will find the Outer
| London market has "hardened" over the last few years.
|
| Verging into cynical territory, marketing might come into
| it a little bit. "Telehouse London" sounds cooler in the
| customer presentation "Telehouse near some village you've
| never heard of".
| Symbiote wrote:
| They build datacentres in/near London and also elsewhere in
| the country.
|
| Here's one example map: https://www.colo-x.com/data-centre-
| database-map/
| implements wrote:
| > I suspect you will find its not a single point of failure
| either. It's just that Hayes is a high-demand area, so see
| above for lack of excess capacity .... if one site goes boom,
| the other will struggle to take on 100% load.
|
| Hayes (North Hyde) is a few miles NE of Heathrow, but Laleham
| (similar sized) is only a few miles South - I'd would have
| assumed both served as fully redundant supplies for the
| airport, given it's critical national infrastructure.
|
| (The old BBC Television Centre in London had three
| independent supplies, I believe)
| ben_w wrote:
| > (The old BBC Television Centre in London had three
| independent supplies, I believe)
|
| There's a story, possibly apocryphal, that the UK nuclear
| deterrent submarines used the continued broadcast of Radio
| 4 as a dead-man switch to determine if nuclear war had
| broken out and they needed to open the safe containing
| their orders.
|
| Which is to say: What counts as "critical national
| infrastructure" can be surprising.
| implements wrote:
| Radio 4 on long wave, I believe - which is only
| guaranteed until the end of June this year because the
| BBC's stock of irreplaceable high power valves is running
| out. As well as triggering Armageddon the LW signal also
| switched older electricity meters (phew, back on topic!)
| between standard daytime and cheap overnight power.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| >And this is before energy prices started rising due to the
| UK's electricity being mostly dependent on gas ...
|
| Wind was the dominant source of energy in the UK last year:
|
| https://reports.electricinsights.co.uk/q4-2024/wind-
| becomes-...
| izacus wrote:
| Heathrow isn't the only airport near London so redundancy is
| already built
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| Yes and no. The vast majority of commercial flights what
| would have landed at Heathrow today won't be landing at a
| different London airport instead. There isn't spare,
| redundant capacity for that. Instead the flights will be
| cancelled.
|
| https://www.thelocal.dk/20250321/sas-cancels-flights-from-
| no...
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly6e24q8glo
| izacus wrote:
| But that's not a national security concern. That's just an
| annoyance.
|
| For national security London and UK can scramble several
| other airports for important flights.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| If by "national security issue" we mean "can the UK move
| military aircraft and important people" then no, Heathrow
| isn't key at all. There are other airbases and airports.
|
| If we mean that a long outage would have economic impact
| and is hard to find the capacity elsewhere, then yes. As
| per grandparent post "take down one of Europe's largest
| airports and global air travel".
| izacus wrote:
| Yeah well, not everything that annoys people and loses
| bussinesses money is a "national security issue", no
| matter how far the US overton window shifted on that
| matter.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| A core goal of national security is protecting critical
| civilian infrastructure.
|
| Always has been, always will be.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| The problem is they're all maxed out. So if one closes
| unexpectedly the others can't just pick up the slack because
| they have no room...
| windward wrote:
| So the solution to avoiding a few days of a LHR-sized gap
| in airport throughput is to build a permanent LHR-sized
| surplus?
| oliwarner wrote:
| Haven't they seen Die Hard 2?! /s
|
| Grid power is hard. Even with local generation failovers for
| air and ground safety systems, Heathrow is _massive_ and uses a
| lot of power (1-2MWh /day). It's hard to route around that sort
| of demand.
|
| I don't disagree that this is something that shouldn't happen,
| but that's what we say for almost every preventable grid
| failure. I think this is a national inconvenience rather than a
| security issue though. There are short-term alternatives which
| will be used.
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| > Heathrow is massive and uses a lot of power (1-2MWh/day).
|
| That number doesn't seem _that_ high, compared to a single
| high-speed train running at about 300kph or above. Or lets
| say all of the London Tube /DLR.
|
| Seems like nothing, actually.
| p1mrx wrote:
| Yeah, that can't be right. You can tow a 100 kW generator
| (2.4 MWh/day) with a pickup truck.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| [0] suggests (without a useful link and my searching has
| not found one) that Heathrow is doing 460GWh annually.
| Presumably[1] that equates to 1.25GWh daily (which could
| be where the 1-2MWh/day came from - a simple unit error)?
|
| [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-03-21
| /heathr...
|
| [1] I know precisely nothing about power consumption of
| large systems but dividing the annual figure by 365 seems
| plausible.
| oliwarner wrote:
| Yup I think I missed a comma when originally reading the
| sustainability report. They buy-in an average of 747 MWh a
| day (2022).
|
| The point I was stumbling to try and make was that Heathrow
| is dense. Just under a GWh a day delivered to a 1200ha site
| isn't going to get a natural diversity of supply,
| especially compared to a rail system does.
| speakeron wrote:
| > Heathrow is massive and uses a lot of power (1-2MWh/day)
|
| It's 3 orders of magnitude more: 1-2GWh/day.
|
| https://www.heathrow.com/content/dam/heathrow/web/common/doc.
| ..
| oliwarner wrote:
| Yeah I munched the maths but yours is 10 years old!
|
| The 2022 version of that sustainability report puts their
| annual _bought in_ electricity at 272,610 MWh, 747 MWh per
| day.
|
| My wonky maths aside, it's amazing how much energy they've
| saved. In your link, the switch to LEDs alone saw a 20%
| total power reduction. I'm sure I've seen electric vehicles
| there so I'm surprised this number is still apparently in
| freefall. Perhaps they're doing more local generation (eg)
| PV
| Eavolution wrote:
| While we're doing wacky units for energy instead of the
| joule, I'd personally prefer roughly 360 DeLorean's per day
| (assuming the 1.21 gigawatts are required for roughly 10
| seconds)
| crazygringo wrote:
| Why would it be a national security issue?
|
| Military airports are working fine. National security doesn't
| rely on civilian airports. And communications networks aren't
| disrupted or anything. This isn't enabling terrorism.
|
| It's absolutely a huge _economic_ issue. Economic-political.
| But I 'm not seeing a national security angle here.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| While I agree that saying this is a big national security
| issue is overstating it, if an adversary can cripple you
| economically because you have a few single points of failure,
| that _is_ a national security issue
| ziddoap wrote:
| " _[...] national security is widely understood to include
| also non-military dimensions, such as the security from
| terrorism, minimization of crime, economic security, energy
| security, environmental security, food security, and cyber-
| security._ "
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security
|
| Large-scale issues that impact the economy are typically
| under the "national security" umbrella. It's a term that uses
| the broad definition of "security".
|
| Whether this incident qualifies, I don't know, but "national
| security" is definitely not just about military stuff. Just
| like how "food security" isn't about physically protecting
| food from damage.
| paganel wrote:
| While I agree with you, this is a huge issue with the term
| "security" and what it means to "provide security" as a
| government, because at some point almost everything can be
| labeled as a "national security threat" if it happens to be
| against the political desiderata of any one controlling
| said governments at a certain moment in time.
|
| I feel like this sort of "security reflex" only got worst
| after 9/11, it was already there before even before that
| point but starting with Bush jr. it cascading into lots and
| lots of non-military related areas.
| mhb wrote:
| Security, harm, aggression, violence, genocide. Redefine
| at your pleasure.
| WrongAssumption wrote:
| "National security, or national defence (national defense in
| American English), is the security and defence of a sovereign
| state, including its citizens, *economy*, and institutions,
| which is regarded as a duty of government."
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security
| vixen99 wrote:
| Whether mere incompetence from those whose job it is to check
| such installations for failure or bad actors, other 'bad
| actors' will have gained a useful indication of how
| vulnerable Britain's infrastructure is to attack. It's
| reckoned > 290K passengers have flights cancelled or diverted
| and ensuring chaos for days.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Most militarily-significant targets are themselves non-
| military.
|
| The Russian war of aggression on Ukraine is a prime example:
| power infrastructure, transportation, communications,
| commercial hubs, healthcare, and general civilian targets of
| opportunity are all targeted with high frequency by Russian
| forces.
|
| UK national security interests are spelled out in summary
| beginning on page 5 of this PDF, "Government Functional
| Standard: GovS 007: Security", notably
|
| _Each organisation's governance and management framework
| shall cover physical, personnel, cyber, incident management,
| technical and industry security_
|
| <https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/613a195bd3bf7
| ...> (PDF)
|
| The US electric grid has also been of significant concern.
| Ted Koppel's book _Lights Out_ (2015) addressed this
| specificly:
|
| <https://news.wttw.com/2015/11/09/ted-koppel-americas-
| vulnera...>
|
| As an example of non-military focus, the present US national
| security policy leads with ... tourist visas:
|
| _To protect Americans, the United States must be vigilant
| during the visa-issuance process to ensure that those aliens
| approved for admission into the United States do not intend
| to harm Americans or our national interests._
|
| <https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-
| actions/2025/01/prot...> (20 Jan 2025)
|
| An earlier document from the Bush II White House leads with:
|
| _People everywhere want to be able to speak freely; choose
| who will govern them; worship as they please; educate their
| children--male and female; own property; and enjoy the
| benefits of their labor._
|
| <https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/nsc/nssall.html>
| (2002)
|
| Wikipedia's National Security article notes:
|
| _Originally conceived as protection against military attack,
| national security is widely understood to include also non-
| military dimensions, such as the security from terrorism,
| minimization of crime, economic security, energy security,
| environmental security, food security, and cyber-security._
|
| <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security>
| petertodd wrote:
| > Most militarily-significant targets are themselves non-
| military.
|
| Indeed. Large scale war is extremely expensive. Russia's
| government is spending about 40% of total tax revenue on
| invading Ukraine. So anything it can do to harm the
| economies of the people fighting it helps. Equally, this is
| why Ukraine has been putting so much effort into blowing up
| oil and gas infrastructure in Russia, their #1 source of
| tax revenue.
| cozzyd wrote:
| perhaps they should blow up some airport substations as
| well...
| robin_reala wrote:
| I think the phrase everyone is searching for is "critical
| national infrastructure". That is a defined term in the UK,
| and includes digital things like GOV.UK:
| https://www.npsa.gov.uk/critical-national-infrastructure-0
| tarkin2 wrote:
| Huge economic issues threaten national security.
|
| Economic and infrastructural sabotage isn't an unprecedented
| act in the last few years anyhow.
| mcintyre1994 wrote:
| Amusingly, some media outlets confused the Scandinavian SAS
| airline with Britain's SAS Special Forces unit, and reported
| that the special forces unit had cancelled its trips out of
| Heathrow :) https://amp.theguardian.com/uk-
| news/live/2025/mar/21/hayes-s...
| belter wrote:
| It's not looking good and the other alternative airports in the
| UK are at full capacity:
|
| "Heathrow Doesn't Know When Power Will Be Back, Days of
| Disruption Expected" - https://www.newsweek.com/heathrow-
| airport-fire-counterterror...
|
| If the entire transformer is lost, procuring replacement
| transformers for substations can take from several months to
| years. Insulation failures are relatively common in older power
| substations. It seems someone should have done a better job
| preparing disaster recovery scenarios for Heathrow.
|
| Edit:
|
| BBC reporting "some power" restored on a "interim basis" as the
| power company is now using a different substation. It would be
| curious if the increased effort on other substations would then
| cause further power failures...A bit like the postmortems of
| global cloud providers, where taking a node out, causes
| increased stress on other nodes...
| quickthrowman wrote:
| One would hope the utility would have a spare transformer or
| two sitting around, I guess that's not guaranteed tho. MV and
| HV transformers have extremely long lead times like you said.
| blibble wrote:
| the utility are expecting to go back on at 3pm...
|
| (edit: and are back)
| belter wrote:
| Yeap: https://www.nationalgrid.com/incidents
| basisword wrote:
| What would you suggest as a backup? Supposedly they have
| generators/redundancy but the place requires so much power that
| that can only maintain critical functions (I guess ensuring
| incoming flights can still land and taxi in the mins after the
| power loss).
| crote wrote:
| One potential solution is to add a connection to a second
| substation. For example, Laleham is a few miles south of
| Heathrow, and can be fed without sharing _any_ infrastructure
| with North Hyde.
|
| I doubt it's worth the additional expenses, though.
| Transformers exploding like this is _extremely_ rare, and the
| main reason this one has such an impact is because the
| firefighting effort required the other two transformers to be
| shut down. Investing in better physical separation between
| the individual transformers is probably a way more effective
| investment.
| richardwhiuk wrote:
| There's also the issue that if one trips, it'll like cause
| havoc with the other one.
| belter wrote:
| JFK had similar issues and it's easy to see, still has the same
| single point of failures:
|
| "Power outage cancels, diverts flights at Kennedy Airport" -
| https://apnews.com/article/new-york-city-power-outages-eb883...
|
| https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-23-105203.pdf
| graemep wrote:
| but its expensive to fix single points of failure so lets just
| hope for the best.
| gambiting wrote:
| Well....I have a flight to LHR tomorrow morning, I'm guessing I
| should start looking at alternatives now :P
| zknill wrote:
| IANAL but, you should be in contact with your airline about
| your specific flight.
|
| You are entitled to be re-booked on the next available flight
| or get a refund. If you take a refund the airline has no
| obligation to you anymore. You might find after taking a
| refund, the price of an equivalent flight is now much more.
| gambiting wrote:
| I know - but I'm going to a concert in London, if the flight
| isn't going at its original time then there's no point going.
| I'll just take a refund and drive instead, but so far it
| looks like flights will operate as normal tomorrow.
| maest wrote:
| Is there going to be a replacement bus service for the flights?
| FartyMcFarter wrote:
| Yes, Airbus to be specific.
| Crosseye_Jack wrote:
| I know your joking, but some flights have been diverted to
| Paris where the airlines are bussing passengers to London! So
| yeah, there kinda is a replacement bus service for some
| flights!
|
| > https://thewest.com.au/travel/perth-to-london-flight-
| diverte...
|
| > Perth Qantas customers who had their flights diverted from
| London to Paris after a massive power outage at Heathrow
| Airport will be put on buses to take them to take them to their
| final destination.
| teeray wrote:
| Boston can send the duck boats
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| If this wasn't executed by the FSB, then they're at least
| furiously taking notes.
| oncallthrow wrote:
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg5dg4p2l0o "Counter-
| terror officers from the Metropolitan Police are leading the
| investigation into a major fire that has closed Heathrow
| Airport"
| 4587qgVAc wrote:
| Perhaps there should be an additional investigation why old
| transformers aren't replaced. The issue is known (275kV, just
| like the one in Heathrow):
|
| https://electranet.com.au/wp-
| content/uploads/2025/01/15449-P...
| jakozaur wrote:
| This is way worse due to London airports' lack of spare capacity.
| They should have built Thames Estuary Airport a long time ago.
| oncallthrow wrote:
| Yes, unfortunately NIMBYs have been blocking any iota of
| progress in this area for around 40 years
| pjc50 wrote:
| That and the sunken ship full of explosives, yes.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Richard_Montgomery#/media/F.
| ..
| cmsj wrote:
| I can think of a very quick way to make those explosives
| safe!
| shatnersbassoon wrote:
| It's enough explosive to cause a 2m high tsunami in the
| estuary, iirc. Not an option.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| That is absolutely an option which other sane nations
| would consider.
|
| Issue a Tsunami warning and get everyone off the beach
| for an hour Sunday at 3am.
| HeatrayEnjoyer wrote:
| It would damage buildings and shatter every window in
| town. Look up videos of the Beirut explosion to gain a
| sense of the amount of energy involved. Even with water
| as a shield the force and shockwave will still inflict
| harm.
| ben_w wrote:
| (1) the UK doesn't have Tsunami warnings, because it
| doesn't have Tsunamis. This also means they don't know
| how to deal with them institutionally.
|
| (2) Right by a river leading directly into the capital. I
| don't know how far away a 2m tsunami would actually go,
| is it close enough to the river entrance to focus it?
| https://www.floodmap.net to play with what "2m" would
| mean to the local area.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| _According to a BBC News report in 1970,[12] it was
| determined that if the wreck of Richard Montgomery
| exploded, it would throw a 300 metres (980 feet)-wide
| column of water and debris nearly 3,000 metres (9,800
| feet) into the air and generate a wave 5 metres (16 feet)
| high. Almost every window in Sheerness (population circa
| 20,000) would be broken and buildings would be damaged by
| the blast_
| nickdothutton wrote:
| What I don't get is that the government now says it wants a 3rd
| runway (this has been debated for 30 years). Why add a 3rd
| runway, costing billions and taking decades, to an airport that
| can't use it 24-7 due to noise restrictions, and doesn't even
| have resilient power from the grid. Heathrow should have been
| bulldozed years ago and replaced with housing, and the estuary
| airport built. Or the Maplin Sands project 50 years before
| that.
| Etheryte wrote:
| Adding a runway to an existing airport is relatively low risk
| and comparatively cheaper than building a new major airport
| altogether. Anyone considering the latter will surely look at
| the Berlin Brandenburg Airport [0], which ran roughly EUR4
| billion over budget and opened nine years behind schedule.
| Given the dire financial situation of the United Kingdom
| right now, I would wager this is an incredibly hard sell.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Brandenburg_Airport
| ohgr wrote:
| So much this. They're still wanking over building a third
| runway at Heathrow which is about the worst possible solution.
| shatnersbassoon wrote:
| I think one of the blockers to this is a very high risk of bird
| strikes.
| basisword wrote:
| I feel like if you build that extra capacity it will
| immediately get used and you will still have no extra capacity
| in these situations. An airport holding extra capacity feels
| like it's just burning money given the demand.
| tremarley wrote:
| The Thames Estuary Airport would be a good idea
|
| But what can the UK do about the likelihood of Floods?
|
| The bird migration that constantly fly where the Estuary would
| be
|
| Or an accident happening at the Grain LNG Natural Gas Storage
| plant, one of the largest in the world that's right next to
| where the airport would be?
| MutantSputnik wrote:
| i wonder who would have the intelligence & motivation
| lo_fye wrote:
| Is the power outage due to the fire? If so, what was the fire due
| to? How far back do we need to go on this? the Big Bang?
| psychlops wrote:
| If we've learned anything from the California fires, the
| culprit will be global warming.
| belter wrote:
| Old oil transformer. The insulation breaks down in old
| transformers. It happens sometimes. No need to involve Russian
| conspiracy theories at this point in time... :-)
|
| "How to Prevent Substation Fires":
| https://www.oilbarriers.com/blog/suppress-substation-fires/
|
| https://youtu.be/2np745xyQ7o
| milleramp wrote:
| Probably, but definitely check for bullet holes.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalf_sniper_attack
| Calwestjobs wrote:
| just check newspapers title pages in UK today....
| https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c70wylzyqw2o
| sega_sai wrote:
| It could be an old transformer, but it is _not_ known at this
| time.
| michh wrote:
| Funny, how we're all suddenly privy to highly classified
| information.
|
| Yesterday, if you'd have publicly shared this one substation is
| enough to take down Heathrow for an entire day, you'd have been
| disappeared by the British spooks for sharing extremely sensitive
| information threatening national security and you'd probably end
| up behind bars for over a decade.
|
| Today, we all just know because it happened to catch fire,
| exposing the flaw.
| hypeatei wrote:
| Taking out any power infrastructure is going to cause
| significant problems, no? I don't think that's a national
| secret in any country.
|
| I get it, all modern intelligence apparatus is draconian but
| this take doesn't really make sense IMO.
| michh wrote:
| There's "significant problems" and there's taking out *the*
| most important airport in the country. Yes, there are other
| airports but this one matters most. Both in terms of
| (inter)national perception and in terms of real damage to the
| economy.
|
| From an US perspective it'd be like taking out JFK, LAX and
| ATL at the same time. But even then, it doesn't really
| compare.
| chaps wrote:
| What a weird take. Arresting someone for reporting a major
| security vulnerability is pretty shitty thing for a state to
| do. What you're suggesting is that that's not actually that
| bad.
|
| Same sort of logic that leads to people getting arrested for
| looking at HTML and reporting that it includes passwords.
| tremarley wrote:
| That's what happened to Josh Renaud.
|
| Renaud discovered that Social Security numbers for
| teachers, administrators and counselors were visible in the
| HTML code of a public Missouri State Education website and
| reported it.
|
| Governor Mike Parson tried to file charges against him and
| labelled him as a criminal for doing so.
| chaps wrote:
| Yep! That's exactly what I was thinking of.
|
| I've been on the side of disclosing a handful of times
| and it's a gamble each time whether I'm going to get a
| CFAA threat (both implicit and explicit threats).
| hypeatei wrote:
| > What you're suggesting is that that's not actually that
| bad.
|
| When did I ever say or imply that? I agree that
| intelligence agencies are draconian, but to imply that
| you'd be locked away (never to be heard from again) for
| pointing out that a substation could be bombed and cause
| power issues is ridiculous.
| chaps wrote:
| They were using a bit of hyperbole for sure (though
| another poster accurately pointed out to you methods used
| against Northern Irish folk), but the reaction of gov
| agencies to use imprisonment (even as a threat!) for
| pointing out security fuckups isn't without precedence.
| It's happened to me :)
|
| So, I guess I really don't understand your point. That
| being arrested for pointing these things out isn't bad
| because it's not being disappeared?
| michh wrote:
| I shouldn't have used the word disappeared, I just meant
| picked up. And yeah no, not for saying a substation
| exists and could be bombed.
|
| But for saying there is a single substation that, if
| taken out (by sabotage, terror attack, arson, or
| whatever), would cause great embarrassment and economic
| damage to the country by disabling THE British Airport? I
| think that's a whole different matter.
| crote wrote:
| This kind of information has been available via open data for
| _ages_ , and it isn't exactly hard for a foreign power with
| boots on the ground to figure out either.
|
| With this kind of large-scale infrastructure it just isn't
| viable to rely on security through obscurity. If you want to
| protect against failure, invest in redundancy.
| rchaud wrote:
| Sounds like a cost center. Heathrow is privately owned. Would
| the board approve?
| fraserharris wrote:
| Business continuity planning & investment is an important
| part of running an enterprise.
| michh wrote:
| I didn't mean this substation existing. I know that's
| obviously not a secret. The fact taking it out takes out the
| entire main airport for at least an entire day is a different
| matter. Do you really think they'd have been fine with you
| announcing that to the world yesterday?
|
| Don't forget the BT Tower existing was technically classified
| under the official secrets act, even though it was extremely
| obviously there for everyone to see including on maps.
| casenmgreen wrote:
| You don't get disappeared in UK. Stuff goes wrong, Gov does
| stupid things, so do police - but that's process/people being
| stupid, not institutionalized disappearances.
| youngNed wrote:
| laughs in Northern Irish
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_techniques
| baq wrote:
| > because it happened to catch fire
|
| Not a conspiracy theorist here, but... there's been quite a few
| expensive things which caught fire in Europe in the past year
| and change and it turned out those things didn't catch it by
| accident.
| petertodd wrote:
| An example from a few days ago is how Lithuania's government
| believes that the Russian military intelligence was behind an
| arson attack on an Ikea:
| https://www.euronews.com/2025/03/17/lithuania-says-
| russian-m...
|
| There's also the "accident" that just happened to destroy a
| US military oil tanker. Sure enough, the captain of the ship
| was Russian:
| https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/mar/12/captain-
| arr...
|
| And it's very clear that multiple undersea cables have been
| intentionally cut by Russia-linked entities. You just don't
| drag anchors for hours over known cables by accident (the
| cables are on charts precisely to help captains avoid
| damaging them).
|
| We're at war with Russia, and these kinds of attacks have
| both economic and psychological harms. They also allow Russia
| to practice techniques in case they need to ramp things up
| for a hotter conflict.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > we're all suddenly privy to highly classified information
|
| Its not highly classified. Its not even plain classified.
|
| Its available on streetmap. The substation (like most are) is
| located on the edge of a residential area / industrial estate.
| People walk and drive past it every day.
|
| Looking at streetmap, there's even a multiple big signs outside
| that says "North Hyde Substation". They don't even make any
| effort to hide it with obscured fencing, its all out in the
| open.
|
| As others have also pointed out, its in open data downloads for
| ages.
| michh wrote:
| The fact this substation exists, yes, obviously. The fact
| taking it out takes out the entire airport: not so much!
| These kind of things _usually_ aren't dependent on a single
| substation. The fact that it is, is not something the UK
| government would have liked to be made public.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > The fact taking it out takes out the entire airport: not
| so much! These kind of things usually aren't dependent on a
| single substation.
|
| Let me re-phrase that for you:
|
| It only took down the airport because the airport clearly
| did insufficient capacity planning in terms of backup
| mechanisms.
|
| How can I be so confident ?
|
| Because that exact same substation serves a number of large
| datacentres in the vicinity.
|
| Due to the grid constraints previously discussed here, many
| of those same datacentres take _ALL_ their feeds (A,B,C
| etc.) off that one substation, the only difference is the
| cables are diversely routed. Not their choice, it was
| imposed on them by the grid.
|
| They have _ALL_ been without _ANY_ electrical feeds all
| day. I know that for a fact.
|
| _HOWEVER_ , those same datacentres have been running non-
| stop like nothing happened. I know that for a fact.
|
| Why, because they have N+1 generators (which are regularly
| tested) with at least 48 hours of fuel, which was topped up
| this morning as soon as it became clear it was a major
| incident and with multiple fuel deliveries already pre-
| scheduled from multiple independent suppliers. I know that
| for a fact.
|
| The grid are of course very busy trying to work some magic
| to re-arrange things to get the datacentres back online.
| Meanwhile the datacentres are very happy to keep ticking
| away on generator power for as long as it takes, its not a
| problem for them, its an event they plan, prepare and
| practice for.
|
| Heathrow could have done the same. They could have added
| generator plants here and there over the years when they
| re-built terminals and such like.
|
| They didn't, or at least they didn't do so with sufficient
| capacity.
|
| Maybe Heathrow also fell behind on their generator
| maintenance and testing regimes. Who knows...
|
| There are people out there who say it is because their
| motto is "spend little, charge a lot", so they did de-
| minimis, prefering to focus on maximising revenue
| generating space. I could not possibly comment.
| michh wrote:
| Sure, no argument there, but the fact is there was a
| weakness there and a weakness that would be considered a
| threat to national security if it were to get out -
| before today
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| BBC.com has much more details and answers (ofc)
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cly24zvvwxlt
| tigerlily wrote:
| What does "(ofc)" mean?
| nikolas- wrote:
| slang for "of course"
| tigerlily wrote:
| Natch, I feared as much. I've been seeing it more and more
| lately. I've found it's hard for me to look at. I'd say
| more but I'm already wasting words.
| sjsdaiuasgdia wrote:
| I wonder if anyone feels the same way about your use of
| "natch".
| stavros wrote:
| I do!
| przemub wrote:
| I needed to look up ,,natch" lol
| tomcam wrote:
| > I'd say more but I'm already wasting words.
|
| ofc
| maest wrote:
| It's quite old, I'm surprised you're only seeing it now
| maest wrote:
| It's quite old, I'm surprised you're only seeing it now
|
| Insert that xkcd comic
| yubblegum wrote:
| I prefer o/c.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| Wow. Almost all the comments argue about whether this is a
| national security issue.
| hcs wrote:
| [-]
| meristohm wrote:
| If you haven't already, consider quitting air travel altogether.
|
| This and quitting meat consumption (or significantly reducing
| either or both luxuries- I quit flying years ago, and I eat meat
| once a month or so as a delicous luxury) seem to be the two main
| ways we can reduce our individual carbon footprint, focus on
| which is a bit scammy by the industry heads who want to keep
| converting resources into money to swim in, so please also
| consider lobbying for stronger regulation of our collective
| carbon footprint.
|
| Public luxury (libraries, health care, bike lanes, public
| transportation, education from birth onward that isn't about
| preparing obedient workers for the mill but reinforcing the
| benefits of mutual aid and participatory democracy), private
| sufficiency (I have enough. I actually have more than enough, and
| have spent about fifteen years getting rid of physical and
| digital baggage that gets in the way of good relationships, with
| an exponential increase in recent years, leveling out again as I
| scrape the barrel for more to let go of). There are so many of us
| on this planet- believing the lie that we can all be wealthy (in
| capitalist terms) will accelerate boom-bust-quit, and I don't see
| the Moon or Mars working out very well. We can be wealthy in
| social-animal terms, though, by being kind and loving and
| reciprocal. It's not that simple, nor will it ever not be a
| messy, dynamic situation, but there's a beauty to that.
| ronsor wrote:
| > If you haven't already, consider quitting air travel
| altogether.
|
| Most people travel by plane because it's the only way to reach
| their destination in a reasonable amount of time.
| joshuanapoli wrote:
| It's not the first time a major airport is down because of power
| failure, and other airports are working to address this type of
| vulnerability.
|
| > The power vulnerability for airports was never made more
| obvious and painful than in Atlanta seven years ago. An
| underground electrical system fire in late 2017 damaged two
| substations and caused a complete outage lasting nearly 12 hours
| at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport
|
| https://www.microgridknowledge.com/microgrids/article/551275...
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > It's not the first time a major airport is down because of
| power failure, and other airports are working to address this
| type of vulnerability.
|
| To be fair, I'd probably be more interested to hear what major
| airports are doing to avoid a reoccurance of CrowdStrike-type
| scenarios. Which is perhaps a more likely re-occurence than
| loss of substation feeds.
| belter wrote:
| "Selected Airports' Efforts to Enhance Electrical
| Resilience": https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-23-105203.pdf
| sss111 wrote:
| Heathrow's power outage is much worse than Atlanta's, this is
| really bad. Allow me to make my point:
|
| 1. UK's has one major airport to get out of the country--
| Heathrow. Gatwick and that lot don't carry the same weight.
| When Heathrow goes down, you're proper stuck. Atlanta has DC,
| Miami right there.
|
| 2. UK allows transit visas, so half the people transiting can't
| even step out the terminal, what do they do when the airport is
| closed?
|
| The US doesn't allow that, everyone clears customs/passport
| control, so no 'no man's land' limbo for stranded passengers.
|
| 3. Heathrow's outage is going to take 24 hours as of right now.
| That's twice Atlanta
| margalabargala wrote:
| > When Heathrow goes down, you're proper stuck. Atlanta has
| DC, Miami right there
|
| "right there"
|
| It is a ten hour drive from Atlanta to DC. It is a nine hour
| drive from Atlanta to Miami.
|
| It is a six hour drive from Heathrow to Paris.
| 4ndrewl wrote:
| Does that include the time spent overinflating your tyres
| and rowing across the sea?
| margalabargala wrote:
| No, but it does include the time to get yourself and your
| vehicle on to and off of the train that carries vehicles
| through the Channel Tunnel.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LeShuttle
| 4ndrewl wrote:
| Ye, I've been travelling on it since the first week it
| opened. But if you were redirected and had to fend for
| yourself you would need to book ahead on a tunnel or
| boat, hire a car to drive from France to Coquelles - find
| somewhere to drop the car, hire another car in the UK.
| All assuming you land in Paris in the morning early
| enough to do all this.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Then your comment about rowing across the sea is idiotic.
|
| The airlines that redirected flights to Paris arranged
| buses to London.
| 4ndrewl wrote:
| Having thought about it you're correct. Even if you over
| inflate your tyres it won't provide enough buoyancy even
| for the smallest Euro-car.
|
| An alternative reading to it 'being idiotic' is that it
| was clearly an exaggeration to prompt some critical
| thinking about the original claim.
| margalabargala wrote:
| Yes, all of which could be done in hours less time than
| it would take to get from Atlanta to any comparable
| airport.
|
| Consider the amount of train/ferry transit between London
| and Paris. That doesn't exist in the US. Rental car
| companies don't keep _that_ much extra stock on hand, and
| really do not love renting cars for inter-state one-way
| journeys.
|
| I categorically reject that getting from Atlanta to
| London with ATL nonoperational would be either faster or
| easier than getting from London to Atlanta with LHR
| nonoperational.
| 4ndrewl wrote:
| Fair enough if you categorically reject it. That's good
| enough for me.
| t0mas88 wrote:
| The Eurostar train from London to Paris takes only 2.5
| hours. Much faster than driving.
| 4ndrewl wrote:
| In theory yes, but we were specifically talking about
| driving. And whilst 6 hours CDG to LHR is possible in
| theory (and I've done it a number of times), it does
| depend on a whole load of other factors that are not
| present compared to hiring a car at US airport 1 and
| driving to US airport 2.
|
| Unless you're in the movie Planes, Trains and
| Automobiles.
| margalabargala wrote:
| I brought up driving to illustrate the incorrectness of
| the original claim, the person I replied to did not
| mention driving. The person you replied to is correct to
| bring up the EuroStar option.
|
| By the way, the snide remarks you add to the end to each
| of your comments may be better suited for a place like
| Reddit or TruthSocial. The community standards guidelines
| for HN can be found at the bottom of the page.
| 4ndrewl wrote:
| I was replying to "It is a six hour drive from Heathrow
| to Paris."
|
| I live close enough to LHR to notice the replacement of
| Boeing/Airbus with Cessna/Pipers from local airfields in
| the sky today. I also regularly drive to and/from Paris.
|
| It is a six hour drive. But ONLY if you have your car
| ready, have booked a crossing ahead of time (otherwise
| you might want to slap another half day on those times),
| make no stops, you don't end up in a queue at UK customs
| (1 hour+ not infrequent occurrance). Don't happen to have
| your car sitting at CDG waiting for you? You'll have to
| hire one, but you'll be unlikely to be able to take that
| to the UK so you're then finding somewhere to drop that
| off and somehow cross as a foot passenger which you can't
| do on Le Shuttle...
|
| Point being, cross-border travel throws up all of these
| hurdles which you simply don't have in the US example.
| maest wrote:
| It's also less agro
| Symbiote wrote:
| 1: It's clearly not been as disruptive as you're suggesting.
| Flights have been diverted to airports within a few hour's
| journey by bus or train, others have been cancelled, just
| like would happen with Atlanta.
|
| 2: I don't know if they've done it, but the UK can grant
| entry for a few days to affected passengers. This will be
| part of a contingency plan.
|
| 3: The airport reopened for some flights already.
| dmurray wrote:
| This is laughably poor geography.
|
| Both Gatwick [0] and Stansted are busier than either
| Washington airport [1], and if you're considering Miami as an
| alternative to Atlanta then why not similarly ridiculous
| options like Paris, Amsterdam, Dublin for passengers stuck in
| Heathrow?
|
| Miami and DC aren't even close to the nearest major airport
| cities to Atlanta. Charlotte and Orlando are many hours
| closer and busier [1] in terms of commercial passengers
| (though still not as convenient as the UK's comparable
| airports).
|
| Only about a quarter of Heathrow passengers are transiting
| [2] and a significant portion of those are citizens of the
| US, EU, UK and other countries who don't need a visa. Maybe
| 10% of passengers are stuck in limbo, not half of them.
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_airports_
| in_...
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_busiest_airpo
| rts...
|
| [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/303939/flight-
| transfers-...
| thebruce87m wrote:
| > UK's has one major airport to get out of the country--
| Heathrow.
|
| I've been using Edinburgh airport and Glasgow airport for 40
| years to "get out of the country".
| belter wrote:
| An Helicopter, has been running multiple 360 degrees rounds,
| around the whole perimeter of Heathrow for the last two hours or
| three hours.
|
| I wonder if they are looking for something or somebody and there
| is more to this story. (click on the helicopter icon to see
| previous runs): https://www.flightradar24.com/GINTV/3990e5fc
| belter wrote:
| Flights just resumed...first landing:
| https://www.flightradar24.com/BAW71SK/39910df8
| t0mas88 wrote:
| That looks like a news reporting helicopter?
| Symbiote wrote:
| It's the BBC's news helicopter, according to the first result
| of a Google search. It's very easy to make these searches, and
| not invent conspiratorial nonsense.
| lofaszvanitt wrote:
| Remove SPOF, build two transformer stations.
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