Experts analyze likeliness of sabotage in fire which shut down UK's busiest airport

(21 Mar 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:

ASSOCIATED PRESS
London - 21 March 2025
1. SOUNDBITE (English) Alan Mendoza, Henry Jackson Society executive director:
"It tells you that actually the UK's critical national infrastructure is not sufficiently hardened for anywhere near the level it would need to be at to give us confidence this won't happen again. I mean, if one fire can shut down Heathrow's primary systems, and then apparently the backup systems as well, it tells you something's badly wrong with our system of management of such disasters."

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Hayes, London - 21 March
2. Smoke rising from substation

ASSOCIATED PRESS
London - 21 March 2025
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Alan Mendoza, Henry Jackson Society executive director:
"At best this is a wake-up call, but you know, if it's an accident, if it's one day of disruption, we've gotten away quite lightly from from what it might have been if it was something more malevolent."

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Hayes, London - 21 March
4. Smoke rising from substation

ASSOCIATED PRESS
London - 21 March 2025
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Alan Mendoza, Henry Jackson Society executive director:
"At the end of last year, the last quarter, the Director General of MI5, the domestic security service, had told us that there is an increasing problem of foreign state actors attempting attacks in the UK and having succeeded in attacks in the UK as well of various kinds. The two countries that are most obvious in this effect in terms of the actual, you know, kind of damaging infrastructure would be Russia and Iran, and the figures were given, we know the concerns. We also have, you know, worries about China in a slightly different way. So you've got three obvious state actors who have an interest in destabilising the UK in some way or form."

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Hayes, London - 21 March
6. Smoke rising from substation

ASSOCIATED PRESS
London - 21 March 2025
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Robin Potter, expert on resilience at Chatham House:
"The difficult part about these attacks is , or if they are attacks at all, we don't know, is whether they are, you know, they could be deniable, right? I mean, that's the key thing about a hybrid attack. For example, the attacks on the sabotage of French TGV network before the Olympics last year, we still don't know who did it or why. So we also shouldn't jump ahead of ourselves. We shouldn't inflate the risk that it could just be a very simple explanation, and I wouldn't want to speculate in this particular case."

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Hayes, London - 21 March
8. Smoke rising from substation

ASSOCIATED PRESS
London - 21 March 2025
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Robin Potter, expert on resilience at Chatham House:
"People have asked questions about whether this might be sabotage. I mean, we have had the head of MI5 come out in Britain in the last sort of 6 or 8 months saying that Russian state proxies are seeking to cause mayhem on British streets, so it's a logical question for people to be asking, and government shouldn't be surprised that people are are saying so given that's what they're hearing from the heads of the intelligence agencies."

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Hayes, London - 21 March
10. Smoke rising from substation
STORYLINE:
A fire at a nearby substation that knocked out power to Heathrow airport raises concerns about the UK’s ability to withstand attacks or natural disasters that damage critical infrastructure, analysts said, even though the cause of the blaze is still unclear.
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