Heathrow closure: what caused the fire and why did it bring down the whole airport? Expert panel

By Kirk Chang, Professor of Management and Technology, University of East London
Barry Hayes, Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Power Systems Engineering, University College Cork
Chenghong Gu, Professor in Smart Energy Systems, University of Bath
Colin Manning, Postdoctoral Research Associate in Climate Science, Newcastle University
Hayley J. Fowler, Professor of Climate Change Impacts, Newcastle University
Paul Cuffe, Assistant Professor, School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University College Dublin
Sean Wilkinson, Professor of Structural Engineering, Newcastle University

Heathrow Airport, the busiest airport in Europe, was shut down following a fire at a single electricity sub-station on the night of March 20. The fire at the North Hyde substation in Hayes, about 1.5 miles from Heathrow in west London, seriously disrupted the area’s power supply, including that of the airport.

The closure has caused chaos, leaving thousands of passengers stranded. More than 1,300 flights have been affected, according to the plane tracking website Flightradar24. About 120 of these were already in the air.

Below, a panel of experts offer…

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~	Japan Doubts Myanmar Junta’s Election Plans

~	From hempseed gruel to CBD: the curious history of cannabis as a health product

~	A 1930s movement wanted to merge the US, Canada and Greenland. Here’s why it has modern resonances

~	Trump’s executive order to dismantle the Education Department was inspired by the Heritage Foundation’s decades-long disapproval of the agency

~	‘The poison of racism continues to infect our world’, Guterres warns on International Day

~	Ecuador: Presidential candidates must put human rights at the center of their proposals

~	Avoiding your neighbor because of how they voted? Democracy needs you to talk to them instead

~	Why the social pain of welfare reform overshadows any economic gain

~	A series that’s got parliament talking and an artist who influenced the civil service – what you should watch, see and play this week

~	A 1930s’ movement wanted to merge the US, Canada and Greenland. Here’s why it has modern resonances