London\u2019s Heathrow Airport announced a complete shutdown all day Friday due to a \u201csignificant power outage\u201d due to a large fire nearby, causing massive disruption to one of the world\u2019s busiest travel hubs as flights were forced to turn back midair or divert to other locations. <\/p>\n
\u201cDue to a fire at an electrical substation supplying the airport, Heathrow is experiencing a significant power outage,\u201d Heathrow Airport said in a statement on X. \u201cTo maintain the safety of our passengers and colleagues, Heathrow will be closed until 23h59 on 21 March.\u201d <\/p>\n
A transformer at an electrical substation in Hayes, a London suburb located just a few miles from the airport, caught fire Thursday night, according to the London Fire Brigade. The cause is not yet known, and firefighters were still working to extinguish the blaze as of early Friday morning. <\/p>\n
The brigade said it evacuated 150 people from the area. More than 16,000 homes lost power, according to utility supplier Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks \u2014 with Britain\u2019s National Grid \u201cworking at speed\u201d to restore power. <\/p>\n
Videos shared on social media showed huge flames and smoke rising into the air early Friday. <\/p>\n
\u201cAs we head into the morning, disruption is expected to increase, and we urge people to avoid the area wherever possible,\u201d Assistant Commissioner Pat Goulbourne said in the fire brigade\u2019s statement. <\/p>\n
Heathrow Airport appeared largely dark amid the power outage, according to videos shared on social media. <\/p>\n
The shutdown could affect tens of thousands of travelers. Heathrow was the world\u2019s fourth-busiest airport in 2023, according to the most recent data, with a record-breaking 83.9 million passengers passing through last year. <\/p>\n
Spread across four terminals and <\/strong>located 14 miles west of central London, it usually runs at 99% capacity, with every major airline passing through, meaning it\u2019s always very busy. <\/p>\n Airline analytics firm Cirium estimated that \u201cupwards of 145,000\u201d passengers could be impacted. <\/p>\n Dual US-Norwegian citizen Kim Mikkel Skibrek had already been flying for three hours from Minneapolis to London when crew announced they had to turn back due to the fire. <\/p>\n On the same flight, Abby Hertz and her family were traveling to London for the wedding of her husband\u2019s best friend. The couple had postponed the wedding once due to Covid and were finally getting married now that their son was in remission from leukemia, <\/strong>Hertz <\/strong>said \u2014 but it\u2019s not clear if they\u2019ll be able to make the wedding now. <\/p>\n Meanwhile at New York\u2019s JFK Airport, passenger Christine said her British Airways flight had been ready to depart when the pilot announced they\u2019d been asked to hold for a while. Half an hour later, passengers were told Heathrow was closed and that another flight which had already taxied to the runway had turned back \u2014 leaving them stuck on the tarmac. <\/p>\n \u201cThe mood is fairly relaxed on the plane, surprisingly. They\u2019ve just come around to feed us,\u201d said Christine, who declined to give her last name. But, she said, with a wedding in the UK to attend Saturday, \u201cI really hope we\u2019re not stuck until then!\u201d <\/p>\n According to flight tracking website FlightRadar24, more than 1,350 flights going in or out of Heathrow on Friday will be affected. It also said 120 flights were in the air when the announcement came. They had to be diverted to other airports or turned back to their original location. <\/p>\n Thomas added that while shorter domestic flights might be able to turn back, that\u2019s not an option for long-haul international flights. There are several other airports near London, including Gatwick Airport and Stansted Airport, but those are likely \u201cat capacity,\u201d meaning diverted flights have to go further to find an alternative place to land \u2014 like in Glasgow or Edinburgh, he said. <\/p>\n And that could pose another problem. Those other airports, some of them smaller and lower-cost than Heathrow, aren\u2019t equipped to handle the sheer number of diverted passengers coming their way, he said. <\/p>\n As authorities race to contain the fire and navigate the fallout, they\u2019ll also face tough questions, Thomas said, including why such a crucial travel and economic hub wasn\u2019t able to tap into a backup power source. <\/p>\n This is a developing story and will be updated. <\/em> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" London\u2019s Heathrow Airport announced a complete shutdown all day Friday due to a \u201csignificant power…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14913,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}