Heathrow

[DeskJockey]

This reminds me of a documentary I watched about a terrorist attack on Dulles International airport on xmas eve 1990 Where they cut power to the airport. The military ended up getting involved with that one.

I've watched that too.

[V8Granite]

It appears that there have been a lot of connection requests in this area.

So old kit running nearer capacity goes Pop, not a surprise if true. Also will be telling if the maintenance was up to date. You need cleaning, oil changes, line pressure tests, connection torques etc

Welcome the heat pumps and electric cars, I’m sure the grid is ready, honest.

Quite embarrassing that there weren’t different sources to get connected to or maybe it’s more complicated, a lot of box ticking before switching supplies.

A bit of a worry that throwing a chain over a fence could bring down the Uks biggest airport though.

Dave!

[240PP]

A bit of a worry that throwing a chain over a fence could bring down the Uks biggest airport though.

Dave!

Michael Caine used a bicycle.

There’s a lot of datacentres dotted around that area. There will be a lot of diesel burnt off in generators yesterday.

[Mito Man]

It appears that there have been a lot of connection requests in this area.

So old kit running nearer capacity goes Pop, not a surprise if true. Also will be telling if the maintenance was up to date. You need cleaning, oil changes, line pressure tests, connection torques etc

Welcome the heat pumps and electric cars, I’m sure the grid is ready, honest.

Quite embarrassing that there weren’t different sources to get connected to or maybe it’s more complicated, a lot of box ticking before switching supplies.

A bit of a worry that throwing a chain over a fence could bring down the Uks biggest airport though.

Dave!

Can you imagine pulling up to your driveway, plugging in your EV and as the charger ramps up…. *Boom*
Massive explosion and fireball nearby from the substation
Beautiful.

[scotta]

I’ve seen a substation go up. There’s a lot of ferocity and energy involved. I expect that these things go for years without maintenance.

[V8Granite]

It’s yearly in most places.

I really hope it’s just a freak occurrence and not down to lack of care.

A Scottish man I worked with nearly 20 years ago would explode if he spilled his coffee, made a mistake or someone working for him did something wrong.

He was walking back from a HV switching room as he said the floor was steaming, there was a cable going underground and it was probably red hot and failing. Maybe 30 minutes later a brand new transformer went up like a nuclear explosion, huge mushroom cloud, thick smoke and he calmly sipped on his coffee and went “that’s a fuckaroo ai” , and carried on sipping

Dave!

[Explosive Newt]

The power supply unit for one of our MRI scanners failed in solidarity yesterday.

[V8Granite]

I saw a comment saying the diesel generator back-up was removed due to a drive for net zero.

Now this sounds like utter balls as no-one would be that stupid. More like some agenda driven conspiracy rubbish.

But now I’m wondering if I’m being equally stupid for not thinking they could do that

Dave!

[integrale_evo]

National grid has said there were two other substations in the area with capacity to supply Heathrow.

[V8Granite]

HV switching is a bit of a faff but you would have thought that this would be a switching profile the workers know about.

That would take hours to switch over, a generator could be online in 30seconds and at full load in 90.

Dave!

[integrale_evo]

It went down around midnight, isn’t the airport pretty much shut overnight anyway?

You’d have thought they would be able to divert the supply and have the airport working pretty much as normal for 6am instead of another 12h of complete carnage.

But hey, I’m not an electrician

[V8Granite]

It went down around midnight, isn’t the airport pretty much shut overnight anyway?

You’d have thought they would be able to divert the supply and have the airport working pretty much as normal for 6am instead of another 12h of complete carnage.

But hey, I’m not an electrician

Possibly someone who becomes aroused at hi vis and risk assessments was too busy thinking of all the paperwork involved.

Dave!

[Ascender]

It went down around midnight, isn’t the airport pretty much shut overnight anyway?

You’d have thought they would be able to divert the supply and have the airport working pretty much as normal for 6am instead of another 12h of complete carnage.

But hey, I’m not an electrician

You'd be amazed at the complexity (and age) of IT systems and underlying infrastructure in places like Heathrow and some of the airlines who may or may not fly out of them. All of which proves for an incredibly challenging environment when things go wrong like this.

[IanF]

No take offs or landings currently.. think it may be all of SE?

ETA - Yarp.. https://airlive.net/news/2025/07/30/ale ... al-issues/

[GG.]

Yikes. Flying back from KLIA to LHR Saturday so hoping this gets fixed soon…

[IanF]

I’m sure it will be.. but why on earth is KL’s ICAO designation KLIA?? Knnn is the USA’s code

IMG_1080.jpeg (336.77 KiB) Viewed 854 times

ETA - ah, it’s WMKK! Weird they have another 4 letter abbreviation for it

[nuttinnew]

It's UK wide; https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cewd49znze4t

[IanF]

Reopened now

[Mito Man]

Wonder if it was something nefarious like electronic warfare from those pesky Russians? I saw 2 F35s (at least I think so, 2 vertical tail fins) fly past very low a few hours ago.

[nuttinnew]