Heathrow airport was shut down for almost the whole day due to a loss of electrical supply.
People were quick to ask if it involved foul play and if it might involve Russia.
The answer was already there in broad daylight.
The UK's national grid has been publicly appealing for help with the skills shortage for some time.
Brexit and Covid both hit the UK in early 2020. The skills shortage became more dire. There are many who argue that Brexit played a much bigger role than Covid in the long term skills shortage.
Who brought on Brexit? There were many actors involved. The role of Russia was significant enough that there is a dedicated Wikipedia page about Russian interference in the 2016 Brexit referendum.
The air traffic control facilities are critical infrastructure. The passenger check-in facilities are not. It was uncomfortable to see that UK ministers commenting on the crisis were unable to explain this distinction to the public or even comment on the state of the air traffic control.
Nonetheless, whether every part of the facility is critical infrastructure or not, it was simply bad for the UK's national brand.
The last time energy supplies at Heathrow were cut so dramatically was the fire at the Buncefield fuel depot. I was living about 5km away from the depot when it exploded at about 3am on a Sunday morning. It turns out that both Heathrow and Luton airports were obtaining fuel through pipelines from Buncefield and airlines had to arrange alternative stops for refuelling.
During the cold war, British Telecom (BT) built nuclear-proof telephone exchange bunkers deep under UK cities. As luck would have it, I was living in Manchester at the time their indestructible telephone exchange caught fire. They discovered that everything from the cash machines and payment terminals to the dispatch system for ambulances depended on the same telephone exchange. Many of those things were not working for about two weeks. Nobody ever found evidence linking Russians to the fire.
Incidents like these are well known in the UK, they have had inquiries at Westminster and they would be wise to dig up the reports from these previous incidents and see how many of the recommendations have really been implemented and whether they can generalize the lessons from previous incidents to help prevent today's catastrophe from repeating itself.
The day before the crisis, Tour de France organizers announced that the UK will host the grand depart and the first three stages of the race in 2027. As the saying goes, on your bikes.