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The Metropolitan Police in London no longer treats a under-station fire which caused a power failure which led Heathrow airport to close as “a potentially criminal affair” following an investigation by officers to fight terrorism.
The strength found “no evidence suggesting that the incident was suspect in nature,” he said on Tuesday. On Friday, agents to combat terrorism opened an investigation into the fire of the North Hyde sub-station in western London.
The busiest airport in Europe has been criticized for its decision to close for almost 24 hours, despite the fact that it was still able to receive electricity from other parts of the network.
The closure has caused the cancellation of more than 1,300 flights, affecting hundreds of thousands of passengers, and should cost the airlines for tens of millions of pounds.
Heathrow and National Grid argued on the airport response to the breakdown, while anger is developing among the airlines and the public over the length of the closure.
John Pettigrew, CEO of National GRID, told Financial Times on Sunday that power was available in Heathrow from two other substations in the region, even when the North Hyde site was offline.
Pettigrew seemed to transfer the blame to the airport for his inability to quickly go to the remaining substations, saying that it was a “question for Heathrow” to explain why he took the action she did.
Heathrow’s CEO Thomas Woldbye, on the other hand, has pointed out the energy industry, telling the BBC that the airport should assess if it needed “a different level of resilience if we cannot trust that the grid around us works as it should”.
Earlier Tuesday, the Minister of Energy Michael Shanks put pressure on Heathrow, suggesting that there was a “significant redundancy” integrated into the energy infrastructure surrounding the airport.
“The local network operator and the national network have been able to … find a bypass solution to connect all households in a few hours,” he told deputies.
“We must examine the resilience of the external network connecting to Heathrow, but the private network of Heathrow is what they must examine.”
