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London's Heathrow Airport announces complete shutdown due to power outage

cnn.com

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Re: London's Heathrow Airport announces complete shutdown due to power outage

#51

Post by petercooper »

evgen wrote: post #17
blindriver wrote: post #10

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.

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 i…

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.

Re: London's Heathrow Airport announces complete shutdown due to power outage

#52

Post by izacus »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #47
izacus wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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".

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.

Re: London's Heathrow Airport announces complete shutdown due to power outage

#53

Post by Symbiote »

FartyMcFarter wrote: post #46
traceroute66 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

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.

According to the news reports, the fire started at roughly 23:30.

Re: London's Heathrow Airport announces complete shutdown due to power outage

#54

Post by traceroute66 »

FartyMcFarter wrote: post #46
traceroute66 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

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.

> 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-...

Re: London's Heathrow Airport announces complete shutdown due to power outage

#55

Post by dylan604 »

hackerbeat wrote: post #36
benterix wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[flagged]

In the US, they use the tactic of electing a president. I'd rather have no power for a few hours

Re: London's Heathrow Airport announces complete shutdown due to power outage

#56

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

crazygringo wrote: post #50
blindriver wrote: post #10

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.

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.

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

Re: London's Heathrow Airport announces complete shutdown due to power outage

#57

Post by Symbiote »

rich_sasha wrote: post #3
viraptor wrote: post #2

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.

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.

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.

Re: London's Heathrow Airport announces complete shutdown due to power outage

#58

Post by windward »

LatteLazy wrote: post #41
izacus wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heathrow isn't the only airport near London so redundancy is already built

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…

So the solution to avoiding a few days of a LHR-sized gap in airport throughput is to build a permanent LHR-sized surplus?

Re: London's Heathrow Airport announces complete shutdown due to power outage

#59

Post by richwater »

Closi wrote: post #49
traceroute66 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.…

> 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 )

It's really quite incredible how people just make shit up, even in this board

Re: London's Heathrow Airport announces complete shutdown due to power outage

#60

Post by tomhut »

petercooper wrote: post #51
evgen wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

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.

Small world, I was gliding there yesterday. Agreed, given the state of the runway, Biggin Hill or Redhill would be a better alternative.
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