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London’s Metropolitan Police is no longer treating a substation fire that caused a power outage that led Heathrow airport to close as “a potentially criminal matter” following an investigation by counterterrorism officers.
The force found “no evidence to suggest the incident was suspicious in nature”, it said on Tuesday. Counterterrorism officers opened an investigation on Friday into the fire at the North Hyde substation in west London.
Europe’s busiest airport has been criticised for its decision to close for nearly 24 hours, despite the fact it was still able to receive power from other parts of the grid.
The closure caused the cancellation of more than 1,300 flights, affecting hundreds of thousands of passengers, and is expected to cost airlines tens of millions of pounds.
Heathrow and National Grid have sparred over the airport’s response to the outage, as anger grows among airlines and the public over the length of the shutdown.
John Pettigrew, National Grid’s chief executive, told the Financial Times on Sunday that power remained available to Heathrow from two other substations in the area, even when the North Hyde site was offline.
Pettigrew appeared to shift the blame on to the airport for its failure to switch to the remaining substations quickly, saying it was a “question for Heathrow” as to why it took the action it did.
Heathrow’s chief executive Thomas Woldbye, meanwhile, has pointed the finger at the power industry, telling the BBC that the airport would need to assess whether it needed “a different level of resilience if we cannot trust that the grid around us is working the way it should”.
Earlier on Tuesday, energy minister Michael Shanks heaped further pressure on to Heathrow, suggesting there was “significant redundancy” built into the energy infrastructure surrounding the airport.
“The local network operator and National Grid were able . . . to find a workaround to connect all households within a matter of hours,” he told MPs.
“We need to look at the resilience of the outside network connecting into Heathrow, but the private network within Heathrow is what they need to review.”
