Huge fire closes UK's Heathrow Airport, global flight schedules disrupted
The London Fire Brigade said around 70 firefighters were tackling the blaze in the west of London, which caused a mass power outage at Heathrow, Europe's busiest and the world's fifth busiest, airport.
Orange flames could be seen shooting into the sky. The fire brigade said the cause of the fire was not known.
According to flight tracking website FlightRadar24, scores of flights were already being diverted to other airports, with Qantas Airways sending its flight from Perth to Paris and a United Airlines New York flight heading to Shannon, Ireland.
Some flights from the U.S. were turning around mid-air and returning to their point of departure.
A United Airlines flight from San Francisco was due to land in Washington, D.C. rather than London. British Airways and Virgin Atlantic diverted flights to nearby Gatwick.
"To maintain the safety of our passengers and colleagues, Heathrow will be closed until 23h59 on 21 March," Heathrow Airport said in a post on X, adding that passengers were advised not to travel to the airport.
On the ground, a number of homes and businesses were without power. "Firefighters have led 29 people to safety from neighbouring properties, and as a precaution, a 200-metre cordon has been established, with around 150 people evacuated," the fire brigade said.
Fire crews were responding to the accident but there was no clarity on when power may be reliably restored, a Heathrow spokesperson told Reuters in an email, and added that they expect significant disruption over the coming days.
Eurocontrol, which manages air traffic control operations across Europe, said on its operations website that no arrivals were being allowed at Heathrow due to the power outage and there were diversion plans in place for flights.
Heathrow is one of the busiest two-runway airports in the world with about 1,300 combined take-offs and landings a day, according to its website.
"Heathrow is one of the major hubs of the world," said Ian Petchenik, spokesman for FlightRadar24. "This is going to disrupt airlines' operations around the world."
(Reporting by Angela Christy in Bengaluru and Jamie Freed; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Raju Gopalakrishnan)
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The National
2 hours ago
- The National
Delayed flights and waterlogged roads: Mumbai residents make light of heavy rains with memes
Amid persistent and heavy rains, life in India's financial capital of Mumbai has seemingly come to a standstill, with residents unable to travel through the city. The showers and consequent flooding have affected local trains – a critical mode of transportation for millions of commuters. People were seen wading through waist-deep waters and children have taken to swimming through waterlogged streets. Flight operations to and from the city were also heavily impacted, with FlightRadar24 showing extreme arrival and departure delays at Mumbai Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport. Residents quickly took to the social media platform X to shares memes and jokes. Mumbai is highly vulnerable to flooding during the monsoon season due to its location, high population and strained infrastructure. Data from a weather station at Santacruz, on the western side of Mumbai, showed that this was the rainiest August in Mumbai since 2020, with 238.2 millimetres (9.4 inches) of precipitation in the 24 hours through 8.30am on Tuesday. The government has announced that schools will remain closed and residents have been advised to stay indoors and avoid unnecessary travel. A monorail train stopped on an elevated track between two stations due to power problems earlier this evening. More than 100 passengers were stuck for over an hour before emergency services started rescuing people on board through a broken window. The passengers climbed down ladders assisted by emergency personnel. 'Extremely heavy rainfall' is likely in many parts of the country, including Mumbai, until at least Wednesday, India's meteorological department said. There is a risk of flash floods in some areas of the city and its neighbouring districts, it added. The current monsoon season has been deadly across parts of Asia, with flash floods killing hundreds of people across India and Pakistan. Southern China and Hong Kong have also been drenched repeatedly in August.
Khaleej Times
07-08-2025
- Khaleej Times
United Airlines flights grounded in US due to technology disruption
Thousands of US air passengers were facing delays Wednesday after United Airlines halted many departures in the wake of a systemwide problem. So-called "mainline flights" — those moving between major hubs — were grounded for over an hour before engineers were able to get things up and running again. "We are working with customers to get them to their destinations after a technology disruption on Wednesday evening," the airline said in a statement. "The underlying technology issue has been resolved, and, while we expect residual delays, our team is working to restore our normal operations." The Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates flight in the United States, had issued ground stops at several major airports. "We're aware United experienced a technology issue disrupting their operations. Some delays may continue as they work through the recovery process," the FAA said in a statement. "We've offered full support to help address their flight backlog and remain in close contact with United." The orders affected airports in Denver, Newark, Houston and Chicago and only applied to United, the FAA's website said. The outage was the latest problem to afflict America's aviation sector. Last month Alaska Airlines suffered an IT problem that left its planes on the ground for several hours. That came after air traffic control systems went down at a Newark area airport on more than one occasion this year, shaking passengers' faith in the system. In January a mid-air collision near Washington's Reagan National Airport involving a passenger jet and a military helicopter claimed dozens of lives.
Al Etihad
06-08-2025
- Al Etihad
UK's Birmingham Airport temporarily shuts after plane's landing gear failure forces emergency landing
6 Aug 2025 23:02 LONDON (REUTERS)Birmingham Airport in central England temporarily shut its only runway on Wednesday after a small aircraft made an emergency landing after developing landing gear problems that left one person with minor Aviation, a private charter firm that is based at Belfast International Airport and owns the Beech B200 Super King Air plane, said in a statement that the "main under-carriage collapsed on touch down."Birmingham Airport said in a later update on Wednesday that the runway was likely to remain close until 2000 local time (1900 GMT).All people on board the aircraft had been discharged by the emergency services and security screening were temporarily closed, it police said in a post on X that emergency crews responded to the incident, which occurred at around 1240 shared on social media showed a small propeller aircraft stationary on the runway of Britain's seventh busiest aircraft took off at 1211 local time and was bound for Belfast in Northern Ireland, according to plane tracking website airport website showed that some flights have been diverted to other British airports and some departures have been canceled or delayed. The airport, which served some 13 million passengers last year, is Britain's third largest outside London.
