Caporegime
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None of that means that Heathrow didn't have enough power at its disposal.
Heathrow total shutdown
- Thread starter Felon
- Start date
National Grid confirms Heathrow had power access during shutdown
Heathrow's boss previously said the shutdown was not for lack of power but to reboot complex systems.
www.bbc.co.uk
Associate
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I remember the initial announcements of the shutdown - "we cannot guarantee reliable power across the airport so we're shutting down for safety reasons"National Grid confirms Heathrow had power access during shutdown
Heathrow's boss previously said the shutdown was not for lack of power but to reboot complex systems.
National Grid boss claims Heathrow had 'enough power' despite shutdown
John Pettigrew, the chief executive of National Grid, said there were two other substations "always available for the distribution network companies and Heathrow to take power".
National Grid boss confirms Heathrow has 3x 100% supplies.
30MW isn't out of the ordinary for large industrial sites.
Jesus wept, poor Jimmy. That’s horrific….can’t believe they showed that on TV for children to see.
For context
Back when kids were scared in to behaving.
Rather than being politely asked or just left to it.
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30Mw is nothing. Grid will barely have noticed it. Seems now NG have confirmed Heathrow had resilient connections, it's time for senior management of Heathrow to explain why it took so long to restore. NG engineers would have been there to assist if needed but it sounds like an internal issue e.g. not having a company on retainer or skills in-house to do it.
I love looking at the utility stats, it's pretty cool how it's all accessible.
grid.iamkate.com
I love looking at the utility stats, it's pretty cool how it's all accessible.
National Grid: Live
Shows the live status of Great Britain’s electric power transmission network
grid.iamkate.com
Soldato
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30Mw is nothing. Grid will barely have noticed it. Seems now NG have confirmed Heathrow had resilient connections, it's time for senior management of Heathrow to explain why it took so long to restore. NG engineers would have been there to assist if needed but it sounds like an internal issue e.g. not having a company on retainer or skills in-house to do it.
I love looking at the utility stats, it's pretty cool how it's all accessible.
National Grid: Live
Shows the live status of Great Britain’s electric power transmission network
"Hundreds of critical systems across the airport were required to be safely powered down and then safely and systematically rebooted," she said.
My guess is that Heathrow is a huge birds nest of stuff connected to the grid, some of it probably still from the 80s, 90s other parts of it more modern - with nobody really having a solid idea of what connected to what, until they had this failure and they saw for themselves.
I also imagine that the people in charge have been kicking the can down the road for years, and this was the end result.
I also imagine that the people in charge have been kicking the can down the road for years, and this was the end result.
Which is basically what I said a couple days ago.
One does not simply ‘reboot an airport’. It’s more akin to a very complex factory process and if it shuts down, will take some time to restart.
It’s also precisely why Gatwick and Heathrow need additional capacity. Any disruption which lasts more than a few minutes will cause flights to get cancelled because they are literally running at 100% capacity.
Soldato
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Considering they have frequent "what if" security meetings, operations, and rehearsals, they were remarkably unprepared for what could have been a terrorist event.
I imagine like most companies, a large proportion of that will be box-ticking exercises, with little of it grounded in reality or of much practical use.
Maybe i'm being pessimistic, but it just feels like standards have dropped a lot in the last decade - and none of this really surprises me at all.
Soldato
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Yep plus there are two very different sides to this, literally.
The airside and the public facing side.
Different considerations and I suspect to some extent some different staff and knowledge.
I would hazard a guess that they gave themselves more time than needed. As you say close to capacity means stuff escalates quickly.
You have carriers like Ryanair who complain about the costs of the airports that they get charged and yet at the same time complain when something goes wrong as there aren't two levels of redundancy on systems that would probably cost hundreds of millions to install and would increase ongoing costs as well.
I always laugh in these situations as everyones an expert the moment something goes wrong.
Associate
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Unless this kind of scenario actually calls for the airport to shut down...? I mean, there's no reason to try to keep it open if there's a threat of further terrorism. The priority is to get all the people involved to safety, including people in the air. I don't believe there's be any mandate to "operate at all costs"...
If there was any chance it was a terrorist event they'd have been closed for at least as long as they were regardless, probably longer as they'd need to both ascertain what happened, and make sure the airport was secure and it was safe for aircraft to start using it again.
Soldato
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Well, no, but the news today is saying that there was no reason the airport should have closed at all. They had all the power they needed, just they were so slow to switch over to alternatives. They should have found this out during their preparations for foreseeable terrorist events.
They didn’t say that at all. You are interpreting a version of events which simply isn’t written down.
They had it available, that doesn’t mean it’s quick or easy to switch from one supply to another if the entire airport has tripped which seems to be what happened.
One can not simply reboot an airport quickly, it’s not your home computer.
Perhaps, perhaps not, either way it’s pure speculation.
One would think that everything in their contingency planning says take things slowly and work through each issue systematically and don’t rush back to operations.
Could they have got back to flying faster? Probably. Could they have done it faster while maintaining the safety and security one expects of an airport? That’s the relevant question to be answered over the next weeks and months.
Soldato
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No its all pure nonsense, the management is just useless its that simple.
Previously i thought that the infrastructure was trash, well turns out there are redundancies and backups.