- Jatin Sharma’s flight to London turned back to LA when a power outage closed Heathrow Airport.
- Sharma, who works in energy and infrastructure insurance, was shocked by how vulnerable the airport was.
- “A fire in one place shouldn’t completely disrupt something in another place,” he said.
This as-told-to essay is based on a transcribed conversation with 40-year-old Jatin Sharma from California, a managing partner at Nardac, an energy and infrastructure insurance brokerage. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
I boarded a flight to London on Thursday around 3:50 p.m. and was meant to land at Heathrow Airport the next morning. Around five hours into the journey, the pilot announced that we were turning back to LAX.
I’d been heading to Italy for the weekend before a week of meetings in London. The captain didn’t give us many details but said that we couldn’t land at Heathrow or any other UK airports, so we were turning around.
There was disbelief in the cabin. Thankfully, I’d paid for internet on my phone, so I was quickly able to find out that a fire had broken out at a power substation close to Heathrow, shutting the airport down.
I work as an insurance broker in the energy and infrastructure sector.
Rare events like this show how vulnerable critical infrastructure like Heathrow is — a fire in a nearby substation meant an entire airport lost power.
I found out we were turning around and started researching what was going on
I fly for work pretty often. I’ve probably been on over 20 flights this year, but this was the first time a flight turned around midway through.
On the day of my flight, I took some work calls, went swimming, and headed to the airport. I like to have a few cocktails and then fall asleep for the remainder of the flight. I’ve had mixed experiences taking sleeping pills, and fortunately, I didn’t do that on this flight.
The pilot made the announcement about halfway through the flight — a point where people usually would have eaten, watched a couple of movies, and gone to sleep.
I immediately messaged my wife. She didn’t believe me until she Googled it and saw there was a fire. At the same time, I was using the internet I paid for to check what was going on.
Some British people on the flight were just trying to get back home. One guy I spoke to was hoping to see his son play in a football game.
I was hoping we wouldn’t go back to LA. I wanted to get to New York or somewhere closer to London. But these are first-world problems, and I’m just glad that no one seems to be injured.
Once we landed in LA, I was back at home by about 2:30 a.m.
The incident shows how vulnerable our critical infrastructure is
Once I knew about the fire, I realized I wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep. I communicated my situation to colleagues in London and did some light investigation.
Given that I work in energy and infrastructure insurance, I kind of geeked out trying to understand the potential financial impact and what it means for risk management.
My first reaction to the incident was, “How can this happen?” The media reports said a fire at the North Hyde substation meant all of Heathrow had lost power. It seemed very strange.
I thought it could be an energy security issue, where there was a deliberate attack — but these events are more likely to be mundane causes like contractor negligence or defective material. It could also be that this incident occurred when critical components were due to be upgraded.
Something like this happening is incredibly rare. We’re all focused on the fact that a single-point failure has had such a significant economic impact for one day. It shows how vulnerable critical infrastructure is.
There aren’t a lot of specialists who really understand the energy and infrastructure space, but I’ve been in this business for years. It gives me a bit of a unique vantage point.
My company, Nardac, works with energy and infrastructure companies on their investments. We act as a broker — helping our clients get appropriate insurance coverage when they invest in things like critical infrastructure projects.
Typically, larger losses in the energy infrastructure market are driven by natural catastrophes like hurricanes or floods.
It doesn’t seem like any natural issues were involved here. From what I understand, there wasn’t lightning in the area that could have caused the transformers to catch on fire. It seems more like a man-made issue.
I think a big takeaway from this is to have more redundancy
It’s early on, but I think lesson No. 1 from this is that when you have a piece of critical infrastructure like Heathrow Airport, there needs to be redundancy upon redundancy for auxiliary power supplies.
The North Hyde substation — where the fire was — isn’t that far away from Heathrow Airport, so I understand the connection. But a fire in one place shouldn’t completely disrupt something in another place. There is an element of shock that it was this easy to disrupt electrical infrastructure without any potential involvement of bad actors.
As a Brit living in the States, I think if there’s going to be investment in an additional runway for the airport, maybe we should also make some additional investments in redundancy.
It’s not just about the economic loss and disruption for people — it’s about the UK’s reputation.
I don’t want to discourage the perception of the UK as a business center because it’s a very resilient country — I’m quite surprised that something like this happened and there wasn’t a workaround solution.
The UK is characterized by its stiff upper lip — pulling yourself up by the boots and focusing on how to get things back up and running.
I’m excited to see how the country learns from this.
Do you have a story to share about the Heathrow airport closure? Contact this reporter at ccheong@businessinsider.com
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