What caused the fire that closed Heathrow Airport?

Investigators were combed through burning remains of electric stations near Heathrow Airport in London on Friday, in search of an amazing fire that closed the most crowded travel center in Europe during the day and raised broader questions about energy infrastructure in Britain.

Officials and energy experts said that the error in an adapter with 275,000 volts passes through it, may have sparked a huge fire, an oil arm, and tens of thousands of homes near the energy network. It seems that the systems designed to prevent such a fire apparently failed, and the size of the fire seems to keep a second transformer close to the restoration of electricity.

But the mystery of what caused this error in the first place remained out of its solution by the end of the day on Friday, even with the resumption of flights in Heathrow.

The Capital Police in London said that the anti -terrorist specialists have assumed the responsibility of the investigation, “given the location of the sub -station and the impact of this incident on the critical national infrastructure.” Meanwhile, political leaders and industry experts said it was probably an accident.

Both possibilities left Britain’s population and international travelers.

If the malicious opponent can hinder travel all over the world greatly by causing a fire at a live power plant, it raises new concerns about the ability of open societies such as Britain to guard about these unconventional attacks.

If the fire is the result of an unimpressed weakness in the basic infrastructure of the British Energy Network, the scope of chaos that has been launched may undermine confidence in the nation’s ability to reform the collapse systems at a time when financial resources are already tense.

Prime Minister Kiir Starmer and Sadeer Khan, the mayor of London, sought to reassure residents and travelers on Friday, as Mr. Khan Sky News told an interview that despite the participation of anti -terrorist officers in the investigation, there was absolutely no reason for anyone who was concerned or annoyed.

However, the Prime Minister or the mayor did not provide answers to some of the urgent questions posed by frustrated travelers, nervous neighbors at the airport and political officials throughout the country.

Why did the airport not have enough energy backup? Didn’t the electrical tool plan the possibility of such a fire, whether from sabotage or technical holidays? Does the main airports usually have backup systems that can operate the entire process, or depend on one main source of energy?

John McDunil, the legislator, who represents Hayes, the area that broke out the fire, said that any investigation in the coming days will need to look at “why did the backup arrangements not succeed.”

He told reporters on Friday afternoon: “There are lessons that must be learned here.”

By early in the afternoon on Friday, the National Network of Britain said that the network of the North Hyde’s sub -stations, where the fire occurred, was formed to restore energy to the airport and the neighborhood, describing it as a “temporary solution” during the repairs. Officials who have a national network did not respond to an email requesting information about the accident.

This announcement paved the way for a partial opening of the airport, as the first flights began to land again by evening.

“We will now work with airlines to return passengers who have been converted to other airports in Europe,” airport officials said in a statement. “We hope to perform a full operation tomorrow.”

But even as Heathrow tries to return to normal operations, the feeling of uncertainty remains.

Ed Miliband, Britain’s Energy Minister, said in an early interview on Friday with Sky News that the fire in the electric sub -stations that paralyzed Heathro Airport also crippled at least at the main backup systems designed to conserve energy.

“There was a reserve generator, but that was also affected by fire, which gives a feeling of unusual, and was not raised,” said Mr. Miliband.

Transformers convert the current from one effort to another, and are often filled with oil and cooler. The types of oil used can have high temperatures, but they can ignite if they are sufficiently hot.

In the event of the transformer near Heathrow, experts said he would turn 275,000 volts into 66,000 volts when it seemed to have failed. Jonathan Smith, Deputy Commissioner for the Fire Fire Excellency, said that the fire included “an adapter with 25,000 liters of cooling oil that was crying completely” at the sub -station.

The failure of the backup system is likely to be at least to quickly restore energy after the main power outage is in a question center about Britain’s reliability of Britain in the wake of the closure of the fire and the airport.

The National Infrastructure Committee in Britain, which provides recommendations to the government regarding the main infrastructure, said that the fire has emphasized the need for better preparedness for shocks, and to operate to build flexibility in their systems and conduct a regular stress test.

“We were evident that the United Kingdom needed the standards of national flexibility to transport, water infrastructure, digital number, energy and water,” the chairman of the committee, John Armet, said in a statement. “These clarity will give the operators and users about the levels of service that they must expect in the face of short -term and long -term disorders, and ensuring that the organizers have a clear complicated, they can ensure sufficient investment in flexibility.”

In a post on social media, Willie Walsh, Director General of the International Air Transport Association, a global commercial association for airlines, books: “How is the critical infrastructure – of national and global importance – depends entirely on one energy source without an alternative.”

He added: “If this is the case – as it seems, this is a failure to plan clear by the airport.”

In a statement, Heathrow Airport said that the facility has “multiple energy sources”, but there was no backup that would provide enough energy to operate the entire airport, which said “uses a lot of energy like a small city.”

The statement said that the spare diesel generators and uninterrupted energy supplies have been deported that would allow the planes to land and passengers to go down. But they were not enough to allow the airport to work completely.

Simon Gallagher, a former executive of the largest energy provider in Britain, said he believed that the sub -subcine was designed so that if the first transformer has a problem, the second place may be able to quickly. He said: “Basically, we designed things so that something can fail,” and the system can continue to work.

However, he said, there should be a number of things wrongly, apparently allowing fire to anger through prevention systems and damage to both transformers.

This is very unusual.

Mr. Gallaghar said that the aforementioned emergency generator systems in Haitro’s statement were designed to maintain runners and control tower systems that operate even during an accident like those that occurred on Friday.

But he said that it is impossible to continue landing on the planes, except for the state of emergency, because there was no electricity to transport the luggage, the stations illuminate, operate the doors and more. Through his appreciation, doing all of this requires at least 20 huge diesel generators with a size of 40 feet of shipping containers, each one is able to generate Megoat of energy.

He said that Heathrow did not have such a system, which was able to maintain the strength of the entire airport flowing for six hours before the need to refuel. But he added that the other main energy customers, like databases, have installed large backup generators to ensure energy in the event of an emergency.

“I think things will change,” said Mr. Gallaghar. “I think Heathrow and other airports will install the backup generation.”