Heathrow boss slept through airport blackout because phone was on silent

Telegraph

5 days ago

The boss of Heathrow slept through the first seven hours of the airport's shutdown because his phone was switched to silent mode, an internal review has found.
Fellow executives initially could not contact Thomas Woldbye following a substation fire on March 21, which knocked out power to the airport and left passengers stranded after thousands of flights were grounded.
Mr Woldbye, who was paid £3.2m last year, had placed his phone on his bedside table before going to sleep but the device had 'gone into silent mode, without him being aware', leaving him uncontactable as the crisis erupted.
It meant that although the power went out at Heathrow at about 11.55pm, the chief executive was not aware it had happened until about 6.45am the next morning, a review by former transport secretary and Heathrow board member Ruth Kelly found.
News reports covering the chaos had been live for several hours before Mr Woldbye woke up.
In his stead, Javier Echave, the airport's operating chief – who had tried to call Mr Woldbye repeatedly by phone – was left to chair crisis meetings and gave the order to close the airport to all traffic for the rest of the day.
Earlier reports had suggested that Mr Woldbye had elected to go to bed after initially learning of the power cut but the review found this was 'not correct'.
Ms Kelly's report added: 'Mr Woldbye expressed to us his deep regret at not being contactable during the night of the incident.
'The review committee recommends that Heathrow consider enhancements that can be made to the notification process of a critical incident, including options for notifying key individuals via a second means of contact for significant incidents.'
It said that Heathrow had already taken steps to ensure the chief executive could be contacted via alternative means in future.
In the wake of the shutdown, furious airlines criticised the decision to announce a full day's closure and said the airport should have been better prepared.
Shai Weiss, the boss of Virgin Atlantic, also criticised Mr Woldbye's 'questionable' handling of the incident, adding: 'I know what I would have done. I would have rushed to the airport at that moment. All CEOs are geared for that.
'You lead from the front and then you delegate back. I believe if Thomas had the opportunity again he would act differently, but that's a question for him.'
Some 200,000 passengers were left stranded around the world in March after the substation in Hayes, West London, caused Heathrow to shut down for 24 hours.
The fire ripped through both the primary and redundancy systems of the power transformer, cutting off one of three main grid lines feeding into the airport, in what grid operators have described as an 'unprecedented' failure.
But the crisis has also triggered criticism from airlines and experts, who questioned how Europe's biggest airport was plunged into darkness by the failure of a single electricity substation.
'No immediate fix'
A preliminary report by the National Energy System Operator published earlier this month found the fire began in a 57-year-old electricity transformer before spreading to a second transformer next to it. A third, newer transformer then overloaded and cut out.
In her review, Ms Kelly said the total loss of one of the three power lines serving Heathrow was regarded by the airport as a 'low likelihood event', because staff had been assured of the redundancies available at the substation run by National Grid and SSE Networks.
She said Heathrow staff had responded as well as could be expected in the circumstances and managed to get power restored in a prompt and orderly manner later in the day, by reconfiguring the site's power network.
However, it was known that losing one of the three power lines was enough to trigger a shutdown lasting at least eight hours.
'This is a result of the way the infrastructure at the airport has been developed over 75 years,' the review said.
'There is no immediate fix to this problem, in part because the airport is operating at full capacity with only limited operational overnight windows to carry out works to improve resilience and within a highly constrained footprint.'
Heathrow had looked at alternative arrangements over the years, including a 'ring' configuration for the airport's high voltage network and a direct connection to the national transmission network.
These upgrades could have potentially prevented a blackout but were part of longer-term plans for the airport's expansion, which had been repeatedly delayed over the years, the review said.
On top of this, the National Grid has told Heathrow that a direct line to the national network may not be available until 2037 at the earliest.
Commenting on the report on Wednesday, Heathrow chairman Lord Deighton said: ' The board would like to thank Ruth Kelly, Joan MacNaughton and Mark Brooker for their diligence in investigating Heathrow's preparedness for the fire at the North Hyde substation and how the airport subsequently handled its impact.
'The Kelly Review is thorough with clear recommendations which the management team will be taking forward.
'This was an unprecedented set of circumstances, but the learnings identified in the Kelly Review will make Heathrow more fit for the future.'