Heathrow chief's phone on silent mode as fire unfolded, inquiry finds
Thomas Woldbye was in bed as senior Heathrow staff decided to suspend operations because of a fire at a nearby electrical substation.
No flights operated at the west London airport until about 6pm on March 21 because of the blaze which started late the previous night.
More than 270,000 air passenger journeys were disrupted by the incident.
Heathrow commissioned an inquiry into what happened, led by former transport secretary Ruth Kelly, who is an independent member of the airport's board.
The Kelly Review found that Mr Woldbye 'was not involved' in the decision taken by the airport's chief operating officer Javier Echave at 1.15am on March 21 to suspend operations until 11.59pm.
Mr Woldbye's mobile was 'on his bedside table' but he was unaware of multiple attempts to alert him to the situation as the device was on silent mode, the Kelly Review said.
Alerts known as F24 alarms were sent to Mr Woldbye's mobile at 12.21am and 1.52am to activate emergency procedures, and Mr Echave tried to call him several times.
The report stated: 'Although his phone was on his bedside table, Mr Woldbye reported that it did not alert him to the F24 alarms or to Mr Echave's other calls because the phone had gone into a silent mode, without him being aware it had done so and he was asleep at the time.'
It added: 'Mr Woldbye first became aware of the incident at approximately 6.45am on March 21, and received a debrief from Mr Echave.'
Mr Woldbye expressed 'his deep regret at not being contactable during the night of the incident', the review said.
The review recommended that Heathrow considers having a 'second means of contact' to notify key individuals about critical incidents.
It concluded that the decision to suspend operations after the power outage was 'correctly made' as this was 'essential to protect the safety and security of people, as well as the integrity of the airport and the UK border'.
The report stated that on March 21, Heathrow began accepting limited flight arrivals from 4pm and departures from 8pm, before fully reopening on March 22.
The inquiry found there 'may have been opportunities to open parts of the airport slightly sooner' on March 21 but this 'likely would have been only by a maximum of a couple of hours or so'.
People watch a British Airways plane at Heathrow Airport in London (Maja Smiejkowska/PA)
Ms Kelly said: 'The evidence confirms that Heathrow made the right decisions in exceptionally difficult circumstances.
'Whilst the disruption was significant, alternative choices on the day would not have materially changed the outcome.
'The airport had contingency plans in place, and the report highlights that further planned investment in energy resilience will be key to reducing the impact of any similar events in the future.'
Mr Woldbye said: 'Heathrow exists to serve our passengers and airlines, which made the decision to close the airport in March because of the North Hyde substation fire tough, but necessary.
'We hope that all our stakeholders understand this was done to protect the safety of passengers and colleagues.
'We're truly sorry for the disrupted journeys, and we understand the impact this had on so many of our customers.'
A spokesperson for the Heathrow Reimagined campaign, whose supporters include British Airways' owner International Airlines Group and Virgin Atlantic, said: 'Lessons must be learnt from the closure of Heathrow during March's power outage, but the internal Kelly Review allows Heathrow to set and judge by its own standards.
'It fails to properly tackle the poor contingency planning and years of inefficient spending that left Heathrow vulnerable.'
The National Energy System Operator (Neso), which is also investigating what happened, published an interim report earlier this month which stated the cause of the fire remains unknown.
It is expected to publish its full report by the end of June.
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The Sun
a day ago
- The Sun
Soldiers dug my grave & raped my colleagues when I was taken hostage working as BA cabin crew… ordeal still haunts us
AS Iraqi soldiers dug a huge ditch, one of them broke down in tears and told Clive Earthy that it was for the British Airways crew member being held as a 'human shield'. But the young man then told the father-of-three: 'Don't worry... the officer is a nice man and he will make sure you will not feel any pain because he will shoot you straight in the head." 14 14 14 This was just one of several occasions when Clive, 82, from Alresford, Hampshire, thought during a four month hostage ordeal in 1990 that 'I was going to die and never see my wife and children again'. Now, 35 years on from the invasion of the Gulf state of Kuwait by Iraqi forces, the grandfather is hoping to solve the mystery of British Airways Flight 149. The Jumbo Jet was allowed to stop in Kuwait City to refuel on August 2, even though the British government knew that dictator Saddam Hussein 's tanks had rolled into his oil-rich neighbour six hours earlier. Once on the tarmac, fighter jets flew across the airport and there were explosions nearby. It only takes a moment to divert a plane, so why wasn't Flight 149's captain told not to touchdown? Clive, who was Head of Cabin Services looking after 367 passengers, thinks he has the answer. He claims a British officer in military uniform at the Boeing's exit told him: 'You're running very, very late, and I've been asked to escort off your flight a group of young men,' who were then ushered away from the normal immigration channel. Later, during captivity in Iraq, Clive says he was told by other members of the UK armed forces that they knew Flight 149 had been coming into Kuwait with important men on board. The theory is that the British Airways passenger plane had been ordered to land in a war zone in order to get a 'black ops' team covertly into the country. This has always been denied by the British government - but it is the policy of the authorities not to reveal SAS operations. Now a Sky documentary titled Flight 149: Hostage of War has delved into the scandal of how innocent passengers came to be used as pawns by Saddam - who paraded his British hostages, including then six-year-old Stuart Lockwood, on TV. Last summer 94 people who survived that journey into hell joined together to sue the British government and British Airways for alleged negligence. That case is ongoing and is expected to put forward new evidence of a cover-up. Clive, who is part of the civil action, tells The Sun: 'I would just like the government, namely the MoD [Ministry of Defence] and British Airways to admit that they knew about certain young men on my aeroplane in advance and could have stopped our flight from landing in Kuwait. 'Do I want money? No. I just want an apology.' While who knew what and when is a matter of debate, what can't be denied is that Flight 149 should not have landed in Kuwait City on August 2, 1990. There had been tension between Kuwait and Iraq, both British allies at the time, for a number of months because Saddam could not pay the millions he'd borrowed from his neighbour to fund a failed war with Iran. Tony Paice, an MI6 Agent at the British Embassy in Kuwait, warned the MoD that 'from an early stage they were going to invade'. For three decades the British government denied this, until in November 2021 it admitted the Foreign Office had been told that Kuwait was being attacked prior to Flight 149 landing. Perhaps if the take-off from Heathrow hadn't been delayed due a fault with the plane's auxiliary unit, it might have made it out before the shooting started. Arriving late on the flight, the final destination for which was supposed to be Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, was a group of ten 'fit young men' who all sat at the back of the plane. Clive recalls: 'When I went around with the boarding cards, they just sort of said, 'We won't need those'.' Having been the last on, they were the first off on the orders of the military officer that Clive met. He explains: 'When they came up to the front, they were escorted, not through the normal passenger arrivals channels, they went down the steps at the side of the aircraft with the military officer.' Rape and executions Soon after Clive had bigger things to worry about - namely the safety of his passengers and crew. With explosions in the city, they could no longer take-off and were taken on a bus to the opulent five star Regency Hotel. One of the BA stewardesses was raped by an Iraqi soldier during the bus journey, and Clive saw first hand how ruthless their captors were going to be. I would just like the government, namely the MoD and British Airways to admit that they knew about certain young men on my aeroplane in advance and could have stopped our flight from landing in Kuwait Clive Earthy He recalls: 'I went up to the Iraqi major in the hotel and said, 'This young lady thinks she's been attacked on the bus, here, from the airport'. 'And he instantly got the guards, who were escorting the bus, and brought them into the lobby. 'The Iraqi officer took out his gun and handed it to the stewardess to say, 'Shoot him', which upset the stewardess very, very much. 'And the steward, who pulled the Iraqi soldier off of her, was handed the pistol and he declined.' Clive was told that the rapist soldier was taken away and executed. Daring escape American passenger Deborah Saloom, 74, saw the horrors inflicted on the Kuwaiti population and feared they would be next. She says: 'We saw military men chasing men with their automatic weapons, we saw them rounding up people, we saw a man hanging from a rope from a communication pole.' Having been told that Kuwaiti staff were getting their families out of the country, Deborah and her husband B George, 77, decided to trick a bus driver into taking them to the US embassy. Deborah claimed she needed to go to the hospital, but on route revealed the truth. She was 'petrified' during the journey, with the driver having to find ways to avoid checkpoints. It proved to be the right decision because they were safe in the embassy while other passengers were taken to military sites around the country and used as 'human shields'. Clive was not the only one who thought he'd be shot. British passenger Barry Manners was told 'I'm going to kill you' by a guard who then fired a shot away from his head. Even worse, BA steward Charlie Kristiansson was raped by a male soldier. 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'The penny dropped' Clive was taken to the city of Mosul in northern Iraq, where six men from the British garrison in Kuwait were also being held. Saddam hoped that the United States and the United Kingdom would not attack his country if their citizens were there. The British soldiers made a surprising revelation to Clive. He reveals: 'A couple of them told me, 'We knew Flight 149 was coming in on the 2nd of August.' "They said, 'London, MoD presumably, had told us, meet Flight 149 at the airport and escort off the men, military men, who were to do work in and around Kuwait'. 'And of course that was when the penny dropped. All of a sudden, everybody knew that there was military on my flight. Everybody except us.' All hostages were released on December 6, 1990 after 126 days in captivity. Six weeks later Kuwait was liberated in Operation Desert Storm, when British and US troops attacked Saddam's forces. 14 A search for answers In the aftermath of that victory, the suffering of the human shields has largely been forgotten. But they are still determined to find out why they were put in harm's way. An anonymous member of the black-ops team later claimed that he was on Flight 149. Clive, who worked for British Airways for 34 years before retiring in 1994, has been told by sources in the air industry that only one person could have ordered an SAS team to land in a war zone on a passenger flight. He says: 'They said, 'We think there's only one person who could authorise that sort of thing to go straight away, and that must be the Prime Minister, Maggie Thatcher '.' Thatcher, who died in 2013, denied there was a covert operation and all governments since have maintained there was no cover-up. 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Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Daily Mail
Chilling conversation Lockerbie bombing victim had with her friend before boarding doomed Pan Am flight revealed
A woman has revealed the chilling conversation she had with a friend - before she passed away on the doomed Pan American flight which was blown up in the horrific Lockerbie bombing 37 years ago. Speaking in a new documentary for the BBC, Alison from Surrey recalled the haunting words she exchanged with co-worker Teresa 'Terri' Saunders, 28, before she got on the plane to New York at Heathrow with her pro-golfer boyfriend William 'Billy' MacAllister, 26. The couple, both seated next to one another, were on their way to the United States for Christmas. Thirty eight minutes into the journey on December 21, 1988, an explosion killed everyone on board, as well as 11 residents in the remote Scottish town they were over. And in the programme which aired last night, Alison said how Terri didn't want to get on the aircraft because she felt sick. 'We had lunch together. We had pizza. We ordered it in and we were sitting at her desk because we didn't have time to go out,' she explained. 'She needed to get away from work early so she could get to Heathrow on time. 'She was full of fluey cold and I can remember her saying "Al, the last thing I feel like is getting on that plane. All I want to do is curl up and go to sleep".' Billy and Terri were going through the Big Apple as he had some meetings to attend to there - and they were set to go down to Orlando for the holiday afterwards. Terri was hoping Billy was going to propose, according to her loved ones. '[Billy] hated flying,' his friend Stewart added. 'He would always pile up on miniatures of Gordon's gin and drink them to calm his nerves because he genuinely hated flying. It's really ironic and horrible that he died the way he died in the circumstances.' Alison has kept a picture of Terri on her fridge so she can remember her every day. Recounting the aftermath, she said: 'When I walked into work the next day everyone that I saw was white, shaken, shocked and crying. All I could I see was Terri's desk, everything beautifully, neatly laid out.' The pair were among 270 who died in the tragedy; and loved ones of six victims have shared the harrowing loss in Lockerbie: Our Story, which is now available on iPlayer. In another moving account, family members of the late Olive Gordon also reflected on a chat they shared with the 25-year-old hairdresser. 'She was just yapping, you know?' her sister Donna expressed. 'Saying "Ah! I'm going to America tomorrow!" 'I said "I thought you were going to Birmingham?" She said "No, I changed my mind, I'm going to go to New York and I'm going to buy stuff" She loved shopping.' When she heard news of the bombing, Donna 'felt numb'. 'All I could see was bright lights,' she said. 'I can't even describe it because I just couldn't believe what I was hearing.' 'I have always asked "Why her? Why my sister?",' Olive's brother Colyn also said in the show. 'And it's something that you sort of battle with. And I'm still battling with it a little bit. Well not a little bit, a lot.' To this day, the family is deeply affected. Olive's niece Tanneisha became emotional as she recounted the effects of the tragedy on her mother as they visited a memorial. 'Whenever I try and plan a holiday away for the whole family, [Donna] is always like "we can't go on the same plane, we fly separately",' she said tearfully. 'And I used to think she was kind of overreacting but like, today I don't think that anymore. I can see why.' Donna also shared how the family had to go to Lockerbie after the bombing. 'There was a centre somewhere there... and they said "they're starting to put the bodies there". 'And I'm thinking, God, I wonder if she's there.' 'I remember the crater, this huge hole,' Colyn added. 'And these little bits all over the place. It just had this smell. My God, my sister was found somewhere here. However, despite the devastation, everyone also spoke of their love for the people of Lockerbie - who took care of not only the victims' bodies but went through the painstaking process of cleaning belongings to be returned to families. 'Just thinking about it now makes me emotional because those people, they don't know you, they've never met you - but they way they treated you, it's as if you were family,' Colyn expressed. 'The people of Lockerbie showed how humanity works. How to display compassion. To display love. Just a hand on your shoulder. I'll never forget them. I remember this giving me hope that there's going to be a better tomorrow.' The documentary also heard from John, who lost his father Minas Kulukundis, 38, in the tragedy. His dad's uncle had died and he, along with other relatives, were due to take Concorde to New York for the funeral - and take it back again to be back just in time for Christmas. But Minas, a shipping broker, was rebooked to take doomed Pan Am 103. 'My father has to be much more than the event that killed him,' John said. 'His memory is almost tainted by the way that he died. It can easily overshadow his memory. The memory of the man and it's the memory of the man that is important, not his death.' Elsewhere one of the victims - Helga Mosey - had just turned 19 when her life was taken by the bombing. She was on her way to the United States, where she worked as an au pair. In the documentary, her father Reverend John and Lisa both revealed the heartbreaking moment they realised what had happened to her. '"What's on the news, on the television, that's nothing to do with us, that's other people". It didn't click,' her dad said. 'But Lisa picked it up straight away. She said "That's Helga's plane". There was a stunned silence and the silence was broken by [her brother] Marcus shouting "No, no, no, no!"' 'Your life is halved when your child is gone,' Lisa added. 'And you have to try and adapt to that.' The show also heard from Rose - who was the girlfriend of banker Tim Burman, 24. 'At my work, someone had to be there in the office and that was going to be me,' she explained. 'So Tim said "Well, that's not a problem, I'll just come to New York and we'll have Christmas in New York. Man that'll be so exciting".' 'I enjoyed his sense of humour, his style, sense of adventure and his ability to get on with everyone.' She continued: 'I called Pan Am to find out what the expected arrival time was. Eventually somebody came on the phone and said that there was a problem with the flight and that the flight won't be coming, it won't be landing, that there was an accident.' The Lockerbie bombing took place on December 21, 1988, when Pan Am Flight 103 was blown out of the sky. The New York-bound Boeing 747, named Maid of the Seas, was passing five miles above the Scottish town when the explosion tore it apart. When first reports of a crash came through, many assumed it was a low-flying military training flight which had come to harm. Flight 103 went down three minutes after 7pm, about half an hour after take-off from Heathrow, as it passed over the town heading out to the west. The flight was running slightly late and should already have been out over the Atlantic en route to New York. The cockpit section fell to earth at Tundergarth, about five miles out of town, landing in a field in rolling countryside within yards of a country church and graveyard. A fuselage section came down on streets in Rosebank, on the northern edge of the town. Meanwhile, the fuel-laden wing section came down on the Sherwood area on the western edge of Lockerbie, adjoining the A74 road, now a motorway. As it came down it exploded in a fireball made worse by ruptured gas mains. It was in this area, Sherwood Crescent, where 11 Lockerbie residents were killed. No trace was ever found of some of the victims, who were vaporised in the fireball. Lockerbie's Town Hall and its ice-rink were pressed into service as temporary mortuaries and within 24 hours of the disaster, a total of 1,000 police had been drafted in, along with 500 military helpers. In the initial stages, 40 ambulances and 115 personnel attended at Lockerbie. They stood down shortly afterwards due to the minimal number of casualties, with all those involved in the tragedy either dead or having suffered minor injuries. The bodies and wreckage had come down in two main flight corridors, one of which included the Kielder forest in Northumbria, the most densely-wooded part of the UK. At the height the plane had been flying, winds were more than 100 knots. Some of the lighter pieces of wreckage were found miles away. On the night of the crash, police made an immediate policy decision to treat the disaster as a criminal investigation. Public confirmation of what had been suspected from the outset came on December 28, when investigators announced that traces of high explosive had been found and the plane had been brought down by a bomb. A later fatal accident inquiry was to determine that the bomb was in a Toshiba radio-cassette player in a Samsonite suitcase which 'probably' joined the flight at Frankfurt in Germany. Of the 259 passengers and crew - 150 men and 109 women - killed, 188 were Americans and 33 were British. The others came from 19 other countries including France, Germany, India, Sweden, Australia and Japan. The 11 people who were killed on the ground - four males and seven females - were all British. Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was convicted in 2001 of the atrocity. He was jailed for 27 years but died of prostate cancer aged 60 in 2012 after being released on compassionate grounds in 2009. Earlier this year, a review of his conviction was announced. Some suspect he may have been made a scapegoat and that other countries were involved in the terror attack. Meanwhile, Abu Agila Masud, 72, who is alleged to have helped make the bomb, is to go on trial in the US in May 2025 facing three charges which he denies.
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Daily Mail
Disabled BBC journalist is forced to wait more than 90 minutes to disembark plane after it landed at Heathrow Airport
Disabled BBC journalist Frank Gardner accused Heathrow Airport of discrimination today after waiting more than 90 minutes to be taken off on a plane after it landed. The BBC News security correspondent has been in a wheelchair since 2004 when he was paralysed after being shot six times by Al Qaeda gunmen in Saudi Arabia. The 63-year-old landed from Singapore on a British Airways plane at Heathrow's Terminal Five at 6.45am this morning following a flight lasting more than 13 hours. But as other passengers walked down the stairs of the Boeing 777 to waiting buses to take them to the terminal building, Mr Gardner was kept waiting for assistance. Ground staff from Heathrow contractor Wilson James normally meet planes arriving at remote stands to help disabled passengers disembark on a medical lift. Most arriving planes are linked to the terminal with airbridges, so a lift is not required. But Mr Gardner was kept waiting for one hour and 35 minutes after the last passenger left - with the captain insisting he would wait on board the plane until he was off. He posted a photo of the plane's open doors on X, saying: 'Annoyed to find that Heathrow Airport is slipping back into its old bad habits, leaving disabled passengers still waiting for a high-lift to turn up so we can get off the plane, long after all others have disembarked. Other airports can manage. C'mon Heathrow, get a grip!' Gardner added 20 minutes later: 'Just to be clear, this is not the airline's fault. BA crew have been brilliant, Captain refusing to leave the plane til I'm off. 'But it's now approaching an hour we're waiting for the high lift to turn up. it's so discriminatory by Heathrow Airport twds disabled passengers.' Heathrow then responded, saying: 'Good morning Frank. We are sorry to hear this, we can confirm that passengers who requested the high lift are asked to wait for others passengers to disembark first. If you would like us to look into your experience further, please kindly DM us.' But Gardner replied: 'You are missing the point. The high lift hasn't turned up.' Speaking later to MailOnline, Gardner said: 'It certainly wasn't great that after a 13 to 14 hour overnight flight from Singapore - which was a work trip - I then had to wait a further 90 minutes to disembark because the airport couldn't find a high lift truck to get me off the plane with my wheelchair. 'I watched the captain phone the people responsible repeatedly and then say 'no one's answering'. To be fair, this doesn't happen every time, and the ground handling staff are always helpful and courteous, but in 2025 it shouldn't be happening at all. 'For every person like me who goes public when this happens how many others are putting up with it in silence? 'This comes down to a need for better allocation of resources and better communication between the airport and the ground handlers. I very rarely encounter these problems in other airports in the world.' In 2018, Mr Gardner criticised Heathrow after being kept on an Ethiopian Airlines flight from Addis Ababa for nearly two hours because staff said they had lost his wheelchair A Heathrow spokesperson told MailOnline: 'We are extremely sorry for the delay Mr Gardner experienced. This was due to the team responding to a medical emergency, which reduced the number of vehicles available but we are very sorry for the inconvenience caused. 'As a gesture of goodwill, we have offered to cover the cost of the additional waiting time for his car. We continue to work hard to ensure all passengers enjoy a smooth and seamless experience when travelling through Heathrow.' MailOnline has contacted Wilson James for comment. Last October, Mr Gardner criticised LOT Polish Airlines after he was forced to 'crawl on the floor' to reach a plane toilet because of a lack of onboard wheelchairs. He said at the time that it was 'degrading' and 'physically deeply uncomfortable', adding that it was 'humiliating' to have to 'shuffle along the floor' in his suit on the flight from Warsaw to London. LOT responded by saying it was 'deeply sorry' for Mr Gardner's 'distressing experience', adding that it was 'testing solutions' to equip short-haul aircraft with onboard wheelchairs. And in 2018, Mr Gardner criticised Heathrow after being kept on an Ethiopian Airlines flight from Addis Ababa for nearly two hours because staff said they had lost his wheelchair. He later met the airport's then-chief executive John Holland-Kaye to discuss improvements.
