Passengers urged to stay home as Heathrow closed following electrical fire
Heathrow airport will be closed for all of Friday, after a large electrical fire at a nearby substation.
Passengers are being urged not to travel to Europe’s busiest airport, with the website FlightRadar24 reporting that at least 1,300 flights will be cancelled.
In the surrounding area in West London, around 150 people have been evacuated and 4,900 homes have been left without power.
Heathrow is one of the busiest two-runway airports in the world, with departures usually taking place from 6:00am to 10:50pm.
A 200m cordon has been set up around the substation.
A spokesperson from Heathrow said that the airport is “experiencing a significant power outage across the airport due to a large fire at a nearby electrical substation.”
“Whilst fire crews are responding to the incident, we do not have clarity on when power may be reliably restored.”
Heidi Alexander, the transport secretary, posted on X: “I’m receiving updates on the fast-moving situation at Heathrow Airport.
“I’d urge passengers not to travel to the airport, and contact their airline.”
The energy secretary Ed Miliband told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the “catastrophic fire” is an “unprecedented event” that “appears to have knocked out a back-up generator as well as a substation itself.”
He added: “We will have to look hard at the causes, and also the protection and the resilience that is in place for major, major institutions like Heathrow.”
Emergency services were first alerted late on Thursday night, and London Ambulance Service posted on X in the early hours of Friday morning to say: “We are currently supporting emergency services colleagues at the scene of a fire in Hayes.
“Please try to avoid the area and if you live nearby, stay indoors and keep windows closed.”
According to the BBC, Gatwick Airport has offered to help wherever possible – but due to existing issues with capacity, the south London airport already has a flight taking off roughly once every minute and ten seconds.
Low-cost airline Ryanair has announced eight “rescue flights” across Friday and Saturday from Stansted to London, to help cope with the excess demand.
Meanwhile, the UK’s first national security adviser Lord Ricketts told Times Radio that the incident must serve as a “wake up call” to the importance of maintaining critical infrastructure.
The airport will be closed until at least midnight on Friday, with the spokesperson adding: “We expect significant disruption over the coming days and passengers should not travel to the airport under any circumstances until the airport reopens.”
“We know this will be disappointing for passengers and we want to reassure that we are working as hard as possible to resolve the situation.”
The cause of the fire remains unclear, as does the full scale of the knock-on effects on other airports around the world.