substation fire shuts down heathrow airport

Events like this one gets everyone’s attention, and not just because of cancelled flights, What We Know About the Closure of Heathrow Airport

Basically, it was an electrical substation that caught on fire, which then shut down Heathrow Airport in London. As reported, English national authorities are looking at the possibility of terrorism being a cause for the incident.

Which should remind everyone of the Metcalf Sniper Attack in 2013 that took a major substation in California offline for many days.  In that incident there was no fire, but many transformers were taken off-line. 

The perpetrators of the Metcalf incident have never been identified and brought to justice. Was it only a “proof of concept?”  It did show how perhaps a “Lone Wolf” style attack, by someone who understood the functionality of a substation and also knew how to cut communications to the substation could really cause substantial damage to the power grid and then also potentially down the line to other critical infrastructures and business interests.