Heathrow defends its response as questions grow about why a fire shut the airport for so long

Heathrow Airport executives on Monday defended their response to a fire that shut down Europe’s busiest air hub for almost a day, after Britain’s energy system operator suggested that the facility had enough electricity from other sources to keep running. More than 1,300 flights were canceled on Friday after a fire knocked out one of the three electrical substations that supply Heathrow with power. More than 200,000 passengers had journeys disrupted, and industry experts say the chaos will cost airlines tens of millions of dollars. The airport reopened after about 18 hours when Heathrow had reconfigured its power supply — something Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said that “required hundreds of systems to be safely powered down and then safely powered up with extensive testing.” Heathrow said that it ran a full schedule on Saturday and Sunday, with 400,000 passengers passing through on 2,500 weekend flights. The fire’s huge impact raised concern about the resilience of Britain’s energy system to accidents, natural disasters or attacks. The government has ordered an investigation into “any wider lessons to be learned on energy resilience for critical national infrastructure.” Counterterrorism police initially led the investigation into the fire, which came as authorities across Europe gird against sabotage backed by Russia. The head of Britain’s MI6 spy agency has accused Moscow of mounting a “staggeringly reckless” sabotage campaign against allies of Ukraine, which has been trying to repel Russia’s full-scale invasion for more than three years. Police say they have found “no indication of any foul play,” and the London Fire Brigade said that it’s leading the investigation, which is focused on the substation’s electrical distribution equipment. Gareth Bacon, the transport spokesman of the opposition Conservative Party, said that “malicious actors ... will undoubtedly have taken note of this weekend’s events.”<br/>