The fierce fire near Heathro Airport in London on Friday led to the power of Europe’s busiest flight center, which had to shut down and disrupted the global journey of thousands of passengers. Heathro said that she does not know when the electricity will restore – this has increased the possibility that the shutdown will last for more than a day, as was expected earlier.
Flight Tracking Service Flitterdar 24 said that at least 1,350 flights from Heathro were affected, and its impact is likely to last several days as passengers are trying to revive their journey and working to reach the right places to the right places. Officials do not know what caused the fire, but no evidence has been found so far that it was suspicious.
Residents of Western London said that when the fire started in an electric substation near the airport, they heard a major explosion, after which the fireball and smoke clouds arose. Tracking services revealed that when the closure was announced, around 120 flights were in the air, some of which were sent back and others were sent to the Gatwick Airport outside London, Charles de Gaul Airport near Paris or to Shann Airport in Ireland.
Lawrence Hes was on a three-fourth route from New York to London, when Virgin Atlantic announced that he was being diverted towards Glasgow. While landing from the aircraft in Scotland, Hayes told the BBC, “It was a red-i flight and I had already spent the whole day, so I don’t even know how long I stayed.” “Luckily I managed to contact my wife and booked a train ticket to go back to Euston, but it’s going to be an incredibly long day.”
Heathro is one of the world’s busiest airports for international travel. It was the most busy in January earlier this year, with more than 6.3 million passengers, which was more than 5 percent from the same period last year. Nevertheless, the disruption that took place on Friday was less than the disruption of the 2010 eruptions of Iceland’s Edge-Jegljokul volcano, which had spread ash clouds in the atmosphere and created chaos in the trans-autlantic air travel for months.
The cause of fire is not clear, but there is no suspicion of any disturbance. It is too early to determine this fierce fire, which is about 2 miles (3 kilometers) from the airport, but there is no “no sign” of any disturbance, Energy Secretary Ed Milliband said.
The Metropolitan Police Force said that the anti -terrorism spies were leading the investigation, as they were quickly able to find out the cause and due to its impact on the location of fire in the power substation and its impact on the important national infrastructure.
Miliband said that the fire, which took seven hours to control, also destroyed the airport’s backup power supply. Heathro said in a statement that he had no option but to close the airport for a day.
The airport said, “We expect significant disruption in the coming days, and passengers should not travel to the airport under any circumstances until the airport is reopening.” The widespread impact of the fire gave rise to criticism on travel that the UK was not ready for disaster or any kind of attack, if a single fire could shut down the busiest airport in Europe.
“UK’s important national infrastructure is not sufficiently strong even around the level of Britain, which we need to assure that it will not re -re -reappear.” “If a fire can close the primary system of Heathrow and then obviously also the backup system, it tells you that there is something wrong in our system of management of such disasters.”
Prime Minister Kir Starmer spokesman Tom Wells admitted that the authorities had questions to respond and said that there is a need for harsh investigation to ensure that “such disruptions do not happen again.” Heathro – Jahan U.K. The government is planning to build a third runway – there was a small disruption center in 2023, when the UK air traffic control system was defeated, causing the entire U.K. The speed of flying and landing was slow. Interruption can last for several days, although the fire has been controlled,
The airport said in a statement that it is “no clarity on how long the electricity can be reliably restored.” It said that he is “expecting significant disruption in the coming days and passengers should not travel to the airport under any circumstances until the airport opens.” Heathro had earlier said that the airport is not expected to open again by Saturday. The London Fire Brigade sent 10 engines and about 70 fire fighting teams to control the fire and about 150 people were evacuated from their homes near the power station. Scottish and Southern Electricity Network said in a post on X that the power outage affected more than 16,300 houses.
Divert, canceled and balance
In Heathrow, a family of five people visiting Dallas came in the hope that their homecoming flight – which is still delayed – will fly. But when Andrea brought her brother, sister -in -law and three of her children to the airport, the police told her that there would be no flight.
Shri, who lives in London, said, “It was a waste of time. It is a very confused thing.” “We tried to contact the British Airways, but they did not open their telephone line till 8 am.”
Passengers who were diverted to other cities were trying to book a further journey to London. Quantas Airlines sent flights from Singapore and Perth in Australia to Paris, where she said that she would take people to London, the process is likely to include a train shuttle under the English channel.
The budget airline Ryanier, which is not operated by Heathro, said that he added eight “rescue flights” between Dublin and second airport Stanstad in London to carry the trapped passengers on Friday and Saturday.
The National Rail canceled all the trains coming to and from the airport. The fire brightened the sky and there was darkness in the houses. Matthew Muirhead was working near Heathro on Thursday night when he came out with a colleague and saw that smoke was rising from an electric substation and the sirens were ringing. He said, “We saw a bright white glow and all the lights of the city were extinguished.”
Due to the night flying restrictions at night, usually start flying and flying in Heathro at 6 am. But the sky was calm on Friday morning. “Heathro is full of noise, aircraft comes every 90 seconds, as well as the sound of traffic, but you get used to it, to the extent that you do not pay attention to it,” James Henderson said, who have been living next to the airport for more than 20 years. “Today is a different day, you can hear birds singing.”
