Heathrow chief out of reach during airport shutdown as phone was on silent, says report

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Heathrow’s chief executive was uncontactable while the airport was shut down due to a massive power cut in March because he was asleep with his phone on silent, according to an internal review into the incident that sparked major travel disruption.

Thomas Woldbye expressed his “deep regret” at being out of reach on the night of March 20-21, the report said on Wednesday, leaving his deputy Javier Echave to take the decision to close Britain’s hub airport due to the power outage triggered by a fire at a nearby electricity substation.

The closure led to the cancellation of more than 1,300 flights, leaving planes, crews and passengers scattered across the world and raising questions about the resilience of the UK’s infrastructure.

Echave tried to contact Woldbye “several times” in the early hours of March 21, while alarms were also sent to him, according to the review by Ruth Kelly, a board member at Heathrow and former transport secretary.

“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,” the report said.

“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 to us his deep regret at not being contactable during the night of the incident.”

The report found that Woldbye’s absence had “no impact” on the decisions made during the night, adding it was within Mr Echave’s authority to close the airport.

However, it recommended that Heathrow consider improving how it made contact with executives during critical incidents, including potentially naming a “second point of contact”.

The incident prompted widespread questions about how the fire at one substation in Hayes, west London, could cause so much disruption.

The airport was shut at 1.15am on Friday March 21 and did not fully reopen until 4.30am on Saturday March 22, with the knock-on disruption to flights lasting well beyond that.

Overall, the review concluded that Heathrow was right to decide to close the airport about 90 minutes after power had been cut, describing the move as “essential to protect the safety and security of people”.

It also endorsed the airport’s decision to extend the closures well into the following day, noting that while there might have been “opportunities to open parts of the airport slightly sooner”, this would only have been by a couple of hours.

“Leadership gave important strategic direction at the right times . . . Heathrow’s response collectively delivered outcomes which enabled operations to resume efficiently,” Kelly said.

Nonetheless, she recommended that the airport review its backup supplies and prioritise “engagement with airline partners” and authorities about the need for investment to make the airport more resilient.

The root cause of the North Hyde substation fire has not yet been identified, although police said they found no evidence it was suspicious.

An interim report by the National Energy System Operator, published earlier this month, said fire took hold in the cooling oil inside one of the transformers at the substation, causing it to disconnect automatically. A backup transformer initially kicked in as designed, but then disconnected.