Fri, 21 Mar 2025

Fri, 21 Mar 2025 How did a single fire bring down Europe's busiest airport?

Questions have been raised over what caused the outage and why back-up systems failed?
UK's Heathrow Airport was shut down by a single fire at an electricity source, raising concerns over the resilience of major infrastructure. Thousands of passengers and millions of tonnes of trade goods were affected as the airport's backup systems failed to kick in promptly. According to experts, the failure can be attributed to a "clear planning failure" that left the airport vulnerable to a single point of failure. Heathrow has multiple sources of electricity, but the fire damaged a critical component, rendering the back-up systems ineffective. The National Grid is also under scrutiny for its role in the shutdown, as thousands of homes were also affected by the power outage. The incident highlights the importance of disaster recovery plans and raises questions about the cost-benefit analysis of having redundant infrastructure. While some argue that additional backup systems are worth the investment, others point out that privately-owned businesses like Heathrow may not have the resources to absorb such costs. Experts note that Heathrow is one of only two UK airports with regulated resilience standards, but a lack of national guidelines for critical infrastructure has been identified as an issue. The National Infrastructure Commission recommended setting standards by 2025, but no action has been taken yet. The incident is being investigated by counter-terrorism police to determine if foul play was involved, and the airport's back-up system failure will also be reviewed. The shutdown has sparked debate about the trade-offs between infrastructure resilience and cost.
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