Heathrow airport live: More delays expected after fire chaos as airport says it’s now fully operational again

Mark Doherty and his spouse have been midway throughout the Atlantic when the inflight map confirmed their flight from New York to Heathrow was turning round.

“I used to be like, you’re joking,” Mr Doherty mentioned earlier than the pilot informed passengers they have been heading again to JFK airport.

He informed ABC Information: “Typical England — received no back-up plan for one thing occurs like this. There’s no contingency plan.”

Heathrow is Europe’s largest airport, with greater than 83.9 million passengers travelling via its terminals in 2024.

However Friday’s hearth is believed to be the worst disruption at Heathrow since December 2010, when hundreds of Christmas getaway passengers camped within the terminals due to widespread cancellations attributable to snow.

In April of that yr, air journey was grounded throughout Europe due to an ash cloud attributable to an Icelandic volcanic eruption.

Counter-terrorism officers from the Metropolitan Police have been main the investigation into the reason for the hearth, which didn’t end in any casualties on the scene.

“After preliminary evaluation, we aren’t treating this incident as suspicious, though inquiries do stay ongoing,” Commander Simon Messinger mentioned.

1000’s of houses have been left with out energy and greater than 100 folks have been evacuated after a transformer throughout the substation caught hearth.

Ruth Cadbury, chair of the Transport Choose Committee, has been talking completely to The Unbiased.

“Like everybody I really feel most for the 200,000-old passengers who have been affected – but additionally the airline and airport employees who need to cope with the frustration and stress of all these passengers who both must get house or need to get to weddings, funerals, to start out a vacation.

“All of these individuals who have been because of fly yesterday and are nonetheless planning to make that journey – it could possibly be days earlier than they’re sorted out.”

Ms Cadbury, who’s Labour MP for Brentford and Isleworth in west London, mentioned questions concerning the resilience of the electrical energy provide within the space wanted to be answered.

“We don’t really know whether or not the problem is the accountability of Heathrow airport or Nationwide Grid infrastructure,” she mentioned.

“We’ve got a grid capability problem in outer west London because of an absence of enhancements coming in, and the information centres – of which we’ve got a cluster – taking a lot energy.

“Hopefully within the days or perhaps weeks to come back, we are going to know extra.”

Requested if anybody needs to be fired for this, Heathrow chief govt Thomas Woldbye informed BBC Radio 4’s At the moment programme: “I’ll look again at that when I’ve all the main points.

“Proper now our focus is to verify our passengers are protected and safe, that the airport is working because it ought to so we are able to get plane within the air and get our passengers travelling.”

Requested if he ought to nonetheless be in his position, he mentioned bluntly: “No remark to that. I’ll let others decide in the event that they assume that’s a problem.”

Responding to the accusation that Heathrow is a “laughing inventory” after one hearth closed the airport, Heathrow chief govt Thomas Woldbye mentioned: “Personally I’m fairly pleased with all the eco-system – our airways, our handlers.

“Folks received us out of the scenario which was created exterior of the airport.

“There will likely be questions however I don’t know of an airport that has again up provide that may swap on in minutes of the magnitude we noticed yesterday. The identical would occur in different airports.”

He mentioned he would set up the information earlier than blaming anybody for the outage.

Heathrow chief govt Thomas Woldbye has admitted he was shocked by the “unprecedented” hearth and mentioned he would have a look at the “resilience” of Europe’s busiest airport.

He informed the BBC’s At the moment programme: “The incident yesterday was main it was no small factor. It takes time to reset the airport. “However bear in mind hospitals and houses and different areas went down.

“We’ve got three substations that energy totally different sections of the airport. However when one goes down completely, which is unprecedented and we’ve got to dwell with the implications.

“The airport shut not for days, however for hours as a result of we needed to reroute our energy provide that requires taking down techniques and powering them up once more.

“We are going to be taught from this and can ask do we’d like one other stage of resilience if we are able to’t belief the grid round us is working the way in which it ought to.”

Heathrow chief govt Thomas Woldbye informed the BBC’s At the moment programme: “We’re sincerely sorry for the inconvenience that passengers have skilled.”

He mentioned the facility substation that caught hearth was not a part of Heathrow’s infrastructure.

“All our backup techniques have been up and working, our tower was working however our techniques will not be designed to energy all the airport. We would wish a seperate standby powerplant on website and we don’t have that.

“Heathrow makes use of as a lot vitality as a metropolis daily. We don’t have backup energy for gasoline techniques, bridges and so forth.”

He added: “Every part involves a standstill when we have to reset as we did yesterday.”

Requested about experiences disruptions might bleed into subsequent week, Heathrow chief govt Thomas Woldbye informed the BBC’s At the moment programme: “There aren’t any disruptions to airport operations.

“Airways, ofcourse, have tales of stranded passengers who want repatriation and so forth and they’ll deal with that.

“However the airport itself is working as regular.”