Gavin Grey: UK correspondent on the investigations into the Heathrow shutdown

New reports have revealed power was available to keep London's Heathrow Airport open throughout the recent shutdown.

Two other substations remained operational and capable of powering the airport - but the shutdown was called due to the time it took to switch from the damaged substation to the other two.

UK correspondent Gavin Grey says this update came as a shock to many people who got stranded.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Devin Gray's in the UK for US tonight. Hi, Gevin,
Morning round. Good to have you on.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Now.

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Tens of thousands of protesters are marching across Turkey. This
is about the Urduwan arresting the rival or potential political rival.
What's the latest there.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Yeah, so a very very big protests overnight they're having
so far in the last three nights now been more
than seven hundred arrests. And this really ramped up yesterday
with some of the worst unrest the country scene in
over a decade. Police used tear gas, rubber bullets, water cannons,
and pepper spray at protesters. Rallies took place in at

(00:39):
least fifty five of Turkey's eighty one provinces, more than
two thirds of the country. And all this is about
the detention of Ekrum Immolu. He is the mayor of
istan bull and was due to be selected as the
Republican People Party's twenty twenty eighth presidential nominee. The current president,

(01:01):
Rejiptier Bird One, has been in power twenty two years
and his critics say he's desperate to cling on to
it whatever is necessary, So just on the day or
a couple of days before the Mayor of Istanbul was
due to stand as the presidential nominee candidate or be selected,

(01:22):
he was arrested. He's now been charged as well, formally
charged with quote, establishing and managing a criminal organization, bribes, extortion,
unlawful recording of personal data, and has remained in custody.
And of course that would suggest he will find it
very difficult to run. And now we learn as well

(01:43):
that the University of Istanbul is revoking his degree. Why
does that matter? Well, because if it is, all presidents
must have completed higher education to hold office, and if
he didn't complete it, then he won't be allowed to
hold office. So yet another attempt I think to stop
in gaining power.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
Really interesting, Now, this Heathrow fire. When we spoke on
Friday afternoon, Friday morning your time, I assumed it would
have been the smoke and the giant flames that were
stopping the planes. Was it actually something to do with
the substations? What's the story with this?

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Well, we've now discovered and this has come out as
they're starting to investigate what happened That electricity to Heathrow
was still available for using other substations However, it's revealed
that that was not considered to be an option because
it would have taken so long to close everything down,

(02:40):
restart it and test it, which the Boss of Heathrow
described as an enormous operational complexity requiring a significant challenge.
So they decided just to shut the airport, affecting almost
a quarter of a million travelers. It's been estimated now
this change of tach from there's been a fire, we've

(03:01):
got no electricity sort of tag has been quite startling
to lots of people who've been stranded around the world.
And I think now we've got two investigations under way
about what happened, one that the government is organizing, another
one that Heathrow Airport is organizing. And there are lots
of calls for the Boss of Heathrow to resign, saying
he made the wrong decision. At the very least he

(03:23):
throw should have tried to shut down and restart, even
if that delayed flights considerably. But Heathrow operates at almost
ninety five ninety six percent capacity. The moment something goes wrong,
it's a house of cards.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
Yeah, absolutely, and wonder what it will mean for REXL
Ruse planes to expand the thing, not even bigger, not
looking good, no givin. Thank you for Thatkevin Gray are
UK and you're a correspondent.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
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