martin collins 1 Posted March 22 Share Posted March 22 Spotted minuets before the sub station fire............. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlyinFlynn Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 How many minutes?......a few gazillion? 🙂 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Carpenter Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 He went to my school!! Not many people know that !😂😂😂 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonathan W Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 This is why we need number plates on bicycles!! 😉 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cuban8 Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 What a sad laughing stock this incident has made us look. I don't get how people who are paid considerable salaries/bonuses and claim to be the best of the best to justify the £s they're paid in order to be on top of this type of thing, continually fail, yet still get away with it. I understand that a potential catastrophic single point of failure in the airport's electrical supply was identified about ten years ago. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Fry Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 C8, reading on this forum, more engineers, technicals, scientists than accountants. But an accountant will say, “who gives a monkeys toss, bottom line first to last”. The rubbish running Heathrow have no interest whatsoever, or even knowledge of, providing a service. Bottom line, shareholders, bondholders first to last. Note, did the same mindset not allow a major manufacturer, and all the ancillary organisations associated with that industry, manage to issue a certificate of airworthiness to a commercial airliner, when a door fell off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john davidson 1 Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 4 hours ago, Colin Carpenter said: He went to my school!! Not many people know that !😂😂😂 I Went to school with his dog, Even less know that 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zflyer Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 It wasnt him, he only blew the bloody doors off! By the way i didnt know he had a dog! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul De Tourtoulon Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 4 hours ago, Jonathan W said: This is why we need number plates on bicycles!! 😉 Here's a job for you, The Dutch ride bikes; Not many English people knew that. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john stones 1 - Moderator Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 Bicycles fousands of em. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul De Tourtoulon Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 Amsterdam station Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Hearnden 1 Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 8 hours ago, Cuban8 said: What a sad laughing stock this incident has made us look. I don't get how people who are paid considerable salaries/bonuses and claim to be the best of the best to justify the £s they're paid in order to be on top of this type of thing, continually fail, yet still get away with it. I understand that a potential catastrophic single point of failure in the airport's electrical supply was identified about ten years ago. Err it wasn't a single point of failure, the sub station caught fire & its backup failed. There are actually 3 rings supplying LHR only one failed. The problem is LHR uses more power than a medium size town. You can provide back up with generators but they'll sit unused apart from testing for years. To cover every major airport in the UK would cost an absolute fortune and all to cover a very rare incident. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Fry Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 A pattern in the industry perhaps. Is my memory faulty, BA put its servers in a prefab, no air con, and they fried. That transformer BTW was ancient, even older than the 747’s still trundling about, did Mr Watt do the backup wot did not work. I drive a car. I test the brakes daily, where failure isn’t serious. Funny story, I picked up a car from Police HQ. The road is downhill from the workshops. Tested the breaks on the downhill bit. No brakes. To avoid straying on the road, dangerous, I hit the Chief Constables shiny Jaguar. I shut them up, “speak to the brake mechanic, not the pedal pusher” Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul De Tourtoulon Posted March 24 Share Posted March 24 9 hours ago, Jim Hearnden 1 said: To cover every major airport in the UK would cost an absolute fortune and all to cover a very rare incident. Maybe if they taxed plane fuel at the car rate, they would have more than enough money to cover the cost. 8 hours ago, Don Fry said: I shut them up, “speak to the brake mechanic, not the pedal pusher” My first job was front axles on buses as an apprentice, Friday mornings we took them out, and they were all tested, some were so good that a front window of the driver's cabin lost its front window.😄 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PDB Posted March 24 Share Posted March 24 National Grid confirms Heathrow never lost access to power https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdjy4m0n1exo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Walby Posted March 24 Share Posted March 24 IMO (as an Electrical Engineer) it was and now appears in the press to be a far greater issue shutting down and restarting all the infrastructure that Heathrow has and not the electrical infrastructure supplying the local area & Heathrow Airport. It is very clear in the electricity supply regulations that the onerous on the owner of the facility (Heathrow Airport etc) that they are not guaranteed a supply at all times and just because the supply tends to be very reliable does not mean that it should be taken for granted. Hospitals and Data Centres have very significant generator and uninterruptable power supplies infrastructure to mitigate such issues. Another factor may be the fatality through electrocution of a contractor at Heathrow and the successful prosecution by the HSE. I spoke with an engineer who was there and the smell or burning flesh is something he will never forget. Remember with High Voltage switching and maintenance you only ever make one mistake as it will be your last. Unique event...absolutely not. Live power cuts today...on a good day! And UKPN Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Gray Posted March 24 Share Posted March 24 We can see where you live Chris 😉😉🤣🤣 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cuban8 Posted March 24 Share Posted March 24 13 hours ago, Jim Hearnden 1 said: Err it wasn't a single point of failure, the sub station caught fire & its backup failed. There are actually 3 rings supplying LHR only one failed. The problem is LHR uses more power than a medium size town. You can provide back up with generators but they'll sit unused apart from testing for years. To cover every major airport in the UK would cost an absolute fortune and all to cover a very rare incident. Perhaps not a SPOF in the true technical sense, but the fact of the matter is that a single fire in a single location caused the airport to be shut down, and apparently there weren't the processes, facilities or expertise in place to prevent such an ongoing mess, even to a more restricted scale according to people in the know about these things and are now voicing concerns that have been known about for years. The old cost of backup argument doesn't wash, with respect, and sounds like why we shut the country down at the first sign of a few inches of snow because the equipment to deal with it properly would be idle for most of the time. I guess that the truth behind this fiasco will eventually come out in some detail and "steps taken and lessons learned" (blah blah blah) but it does make us look like fools when one considers the worldwide travel problems we've caused. po|||||||||||F Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Hearnden 1 Posted March 24 Share Posted March 24 1 hour ago, Chris Walby said: IMO (as an Electrical Engineer) it was and now appears in the press to be a far greater issue shutting down and restarting all the infrastructure that Heathrow has and not the electrical infrastructure supplying the local area & Heathrow Airport. It is very clear in the electricity supply regulations that the onerous on the owner of the facility (Heathrow Airport etc) that they are not guaranteed a supply at all times and just because the supply tends to be very reliable does not mean that it should be taken for granted. Hospitals and Data Centres have very significant generator and uninterruptable power supplies infrastructure to mitigate such issues. Unique event...absolutely not. I design data centres as a living, apparently the power in 2016 for LHR was 55MW. Yes it could be generated but the Greenies would be very excited as it would need test every month or so. I put data centres in hospitals & most have only a single grid feed. They do have diesel generation & we put modular UPS on them as well. I am ex-RAE apprentice & just down the road was the NGTE (National Gas Turbine Establishment) ex-Sir FRank Whittle. Hence when we were in 3 day week we carried on working as we were running on their facility. It also ran the big wind tunnel as there was not enough power in Farnborough without it. It was a unique event, the HV transformer caught fire & then took out its backup because the water sprinkler system didn't start. From someone who knows "So what went wrong? Looking at it, the two transformers that can feed the DNO sub that feeds the local sub that feeds Heathrow do not have a firewall and instead have a sprinkler system installed. One caught fire (a rare event) and the sprinkler system (which is fed from one of two diesel fired water pumps in duty/standby set up) failed to either work or be effective. As a result, either damage occurred to the adjacent transformer or it was de-energised for the fire brigade to fight the fire, or both. What should have happened is that the fire should have been suppressed and the second transformer should have kept running. This is why I really don’t like having transformers without a fire wall with a blast rating, sprinklers are an active system and don’t always survive the initial failure." 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kim Taylor Posted March 24 Share Posted March 24 Spraying water on burning oil............ good choice 🙄 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul De Tourtoulon Posted March 24 Share Posted March 24 2 minutes ago, Kim Taylor said: Spraying water on burning oil............ good choice 🙄 Especially if it is the highly toxic PCB ( French initials) which pollutes and when burned gives out highly toxic smoke, although I think they have changed it since. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kim Taylor Posted March 24 Share Posted March 24 The only French oil I have any experience of is Citroën green hydraulic fluid, but well o/t so we'll leave it there. 🫣 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Harris - Moderator Posted March 24 Share Posted March 24 If it’s water mist then I believe it’s a valid method which limits access to oxygen and removes heat - two of the three vital components for combustion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john stones 1 - Moderator Posted March 24 Share Posted March 24 Some flights got cancelled and some delays experienced, it that big a deal ? Not really read about it, but hopefully no one got injured or worse. Be wildfires/ floods maybe a Volcano erupting and delays on major roads etc, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul De Tourtoulon Posted March 24 Share Posted March 24 Maybe it lowered the c02 level so that the diesel car owners could go out for a ride without feeling guilty. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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