Heathrow boss apologises for blackout chaos and admits generators were NEVER strong enough to run airport - as backlash mounts over handling of power cut meltdown that stranded 200,000 passengers

Heathrows chief executive has apologised to stranded passengers and defended the response to an unprecedented loss of power caused by a substation fire. 

Thomas Woldbye described the blaze which knocked out an electricity substation in Hayes in the early hours of Friday as as big as it gets for our airport and that we cannot guard ourselves 100%. 

Flights are due to resume at Heathrow Airport on Friday evening after 200,000 travellers saw their flights to or from Heathrow axed or diverted afterthe blaze.

The Heathrow boss also said that a back-up transformer failed and power supplies had to be restructured to restore electricity enough to power what is described as a mid-sized city.

The west London airport initially announced it would be closed until 11.59pm but later said repatriation flights and a handful of British Airways long-haul flights would resume Friday evening. It is expected to run a full schedule on Saturday.

Mr Woldbye said: Id like to stress that this has been an incident of major severity. Its not a small fire.

We have lost power equal to that of a mid-sized city and our backup systems have been working as they should but they are not sized to run the entire airport.

Asked if there is a weak point in Heathrows power system, he said: You can say that but of course contingencies of certain sizes we cannot guard ourselves against 100% and this is one of them.

This has been a major incident. I mean, short of anybody getting hurt, this is as big as it gets for our airport and we are actually coming back quite fast I would say, when you consider the amount of systems that we have to shut down then bring back up and make sure that theyre safe.  

Video footage shows the dramatic moment an American Airlines pilot told passengers enroute to London that their plane would be performing a sudden u-turn.

Flight AA730 left Charlotte in North Carolina at 7.30pm EDT last night (11.30pm GMT) and was due to land at Heathrow over seven hours later at 7am GMT (3am EDT).

But as the Boeing 777 made it to the eastern edge of Canada passengers were left shocked as the flight path map on their screens showed it had done a 180-degree turn.

The travellers were among the 670 flights affected by the unprecedented chaos at Europes busiest airport - with significant disruption expected to continue for days. 

 Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander called it an unprecedented situation that has been totally outside of Heathrows control, as she said we will learn lessons from the disorder. 

She added that there is no suggestion of foul play in the fire. Counter terrorism police are involved in identifying the cause of the substation fire because it took place next to a critical piece of national infrastructure.

In the clip, the pilot can be heard saying: Some of you may have noticed on the TV screen we have made a 180-degree turn. We are heading back to Charlotte.

Let me tell you what is going on - there was a huge fire at the power substation at London Heathrow. The runways have light but there is no power at all in the terminals and they are not accepting flights into London Heathrow for the next 22 hours.

He added: Gatwick and Manchester were not accepting flights and but then they changed their minds and said they are accepting flights.

But we are so far away from those airports that by the time we get to Gatwick or Manchester there will be no room for our airplane because all the other airplanes are diverting to Manchester and Gatwick and thats why we are returning to Charlotte.

As passengers could be heard groaning at the news, the pilot added: We will be on the ground in three hours and about 24 minutes.

They ended up landing back at Charlotte at about 2.30am EDT this morning (6.30am GMT), just half an hour before they had originally been due to land at Heathrow today - meaning they had completed a 3,500-mile flight for nothing.

However, electricity now appears to have returned to the airport after an interim solution was found by engineers at National Grid.  

Reporters inside Terminal 4 this afternoon said lights in the main building have switched back on and lifts in the multi-storey car park are operational again.

Speaking this afternooon, Heathrows chief executive gave details over the decision to close Europes busiest airport on Friday after a fire at a substation caused a power outage.

Speaking to reporters, Mr Woldbye said: We have three of these substations, each of them has a backup transformer.

The backup transformer in this case also went and then we had to restructure the supply. So were not out of power but we have to restructure our power supply.

To do that we have to close down systems - that is safety procedure, we will not go around that.

He added: Two substations can run the airport but we need to re-engineer the structure of the power supply for all the terminals and thats what we were doing during the day, and then we have to restart all the systems and thats what weve done, and we now see operation coming back.

He described the decision to close the airport as a very difficult one that they took quite early when it became clear Heathrow could not be safely operated.

And in a statement, the airport announced that it was now safely able to begin some flights later today - with British Airways given clearance for eight long-haul journeys. 

Our first flights will be repatriation flights and relocating aircraft, a spokesman said. Please do not travel to the airport unless your airline has advised you to do so.

We will now work with the airlines on repatriating the passengers who were diverted to other airports in Europe. We hope to run a full operation tomorrow and will provide further information shortly.

However, travel journalist Simon Calder insisted tomorrow will be far from a normal day at Heathrow and disruption will stretch into next week.

Ultimately its extremely damaging to the UK economically, reputationally and so much distress to people. All those people have been let down, he said.

Those feeling most let down are likely to be those forced into hotels, with prices near to Heathrow surging by £946 a night. 

One hotel by Heathrow was tonight charging a whopping £1,000 for a standard room for two people.

The price listed for the North Avenue Guest House on Booking.com is staggeringly higher than the £54 it would cost you to stay next Friday instead - a difference of £946. This also means a room tonight is 1,850 per cent of the price next Friday.

As Heathrow shut down sparking worldwide travel carnage:

• Follow MailOnlines live blog for rolling coverage of the chaos at Heathrow;
• Counter terrorism police probing Heathrow fire amid claims of Russian sabotage;
• Experts say blaze exposes huge vulnerability in Britains critical national infrastructure
• Almost 1,400 flights have been cancelled sparking flight chaos across the world with hundreds of planes forced to divert to other UK airports or further afield;
• Extraordinary and terrifying pictures of the substation fire have emerged with smoke seen all over London;
• MailOnline has compiled a full list of Heathrow Airport flights cancelled following fire - as Gatwick also issues major update;

Passengers on other flights also posted videos on social media of their planes being diverted, including one who was travelling from Malaysia to Heathrow who ended up being redirected to Amsterdam.

Another was on a flight which U-turned back to Kuala Lumpur shortly after taking off.

A third was travelling from Thailand to Heathrow but ended up in a hotel in Frankfurt after being diverted en route. 

And a fourth was halfway to London on a eight-hour flight from Dubai which had to turn back.

Meanwhile, passengers on board Qantas flights to Heathrow Airport from Singapore and Perth were diverted to Paris before taking buses to London, the airline said.

A Qantas spokesperson said: Our Singapore-London and Perth-London services were diverted to Paris today, with buses arranged to take customers on to London.

Our teams are working hard to support impacted customers and we thank them for their patience.

Passengers are now being warned to expect disruption for several days due to the Heathrow closure, and many planes and flight crews are now in the wrong location.

Online flight tracking service Flightradar24 said the closure would affect more than 1,350 flights to and from Heathrow today. This includes 679 scheduled to land and 678 due to take off from the airport.

It said 120 flights to the airport were in the air when the closure was announced.

Flights were diverted to Gatwick, Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris and Irelands Shannon Airport. Some were also turned around and returned to airports in Canada.

London Gatwick accepted seven diverted flights from locations including Singapore, Johannesburg, Lagos, Cape Town and Doha which were originally destined for Heathrow.

Shannon Airport in Co Clare accepted six diversions from Toronto, Atlanta, Bridgetown Barbados, Boston, Orlando and Newark.

The Metropolitan Police said there is currently no indication of foul play relating to the fire, but we retain an open mind at this time.

The force said its Counter Terrorism Command would lead inquiries given the impact of the fire on critical national infrastructure.

Thousands of homes have been left without power and more than 100 people were evacuated after a transformer within the North Hyde electrical substation caught fire in West London.

The airport, which is supplied by the substation, said it was among those affected by the power outage.

Tom Watters, who has worked on critical infrastructure around the world, told MailOnline the crucial substation powering Heathrow and west London contains very old equipment and blamed a lack of investment for the crisis and blamed the catastrophic failure of an oil-filled transformer for the devastating fire.

The substation fire in Hayes involved 25,000 litres of cooling oil igniting, the London Fire Brigade (LFB) has said. 

MailOnline can also reveal that a report for London Mayor Sadiq Khan in 2022 identified major problems with the electricity supply system in the Heathrow area.

It warned that the North Hyde substation, which exploded into flames last night, has been running at 106.2 per cent of capacity.

Heathrow is the UKs largest airport, with more than 83.9 million passengers travelling through its terminals in 2024.

Electrical engineer Mr Watters, director of Sanguine Impact Investments, told MailOnline: An oil filled transformer has obviously failed and caused the massive fire.

This looks like a very old transformer and its surprising that such an old piece of critical equipment was still in service. I assume a lack of investment is the reason.

The design of the substation while being ok is also very old style. Modern substations are normally enclosed using gas as the insulation.

Counter terrorism police are now leading the probe into the fire amid fears it could be a Russian sabotage attack.

Western officials have accused Russia and its proxies of staging dozens of attacks and other incidents across Europe since the invasion of Ukraine three years ago.

They allege that the disruption campaign is an extension of President Putins war, intended to sow division in European societies and undermine support for Ukraine - although the Kremlin has denied carrying out sabotage efforts against the West.

Transport Secretary Ms Alexander said that counter terrorism police are involved in identifying the cause of the substation fire because it took place next to a critical piece of national infrastructure.

The counter terrorism command has specific capabilities and capacities that mean that they are used to conducting investigations at pace, and its really important that we identify the cause of this quickly.

There are no suggestions at the moment of foul play, but you will appreciate the investigation, keeps an open mind, and our priority is identifying the cause as soon as possible.

Earlier this week, Putin had agreed to a limited ceasefire that stops Russia targeting Ukraines energy infrastructure after a phone call with US President Donald Trump.

Now, experts are analysing whether Russia could be linked to the UK substation fire, which is affecting 679 flights scheduled to land and 678 departures from Heathrow.

Scotland Yards Counter Terrorism Command is leading the investigation given the need to quickly establish whether sabotage was involved and the security questions relating to how one fire took down a major piece of infrastructure. It comes as: