Heathrow Airport in Great Britain said Friday that it was not clear when the most busy airport in Europe could reopen after a fire knocked out its power, extended through passengers and angered the airlines who questioned how such crucial infrastructure could fail.
The London Fire Brigade said that around 70 firefighters were addressing the fire in western London, which caused a massive blackout at the airport, which is the fifth most business in the world.
You could see huge flames oranges and smoke shooting to heaven Thursday night. Around 150 people were evacuated from nearby buildings and thousands of properties were without energy, since a fire involved a substation near the airport, cutting the power supply and a backup system.
Police said that although there were no signs of dirty play, they retained an open mind and anti -terrorism officers would lead the investigations, given their abilities and the critical nature of the infrastructure.
Heathrow said in 1330 GMT that he had no clarity about when energy was restored reliably, since he had previously said that the airport would be closed until midnight.
Airline experts said that the last time the European airports experienced a large -scale interruption was the 2010 islands cloud that based about 100,000 flights. The industry now faces the perspective of a financial blow that costs dozens of millions of pounds, and a probable fight for who should pay.
“You might think that they would have a significant support power,” said a senior executive of a European airline Reuters.
The Fire Brigade said that the cause of fire was not known, but that 25,000 liters of cooling oil in the substation transformer had set fire. In the morning, the transformer could see burning, soaked with white foam of fire extinction.
Heathrow had been driving 1,351 flights on Friday, flying up to 291,000 passengers. The closure forced the flights to deviate to other airports in Britain and throughout Europe, while many long distance flights returned to their starting point.
The passengers stranded in London and facing the perspective of days of interruptions were fighting to make alternative travel arrangements.
“He is quite stressful,” Robyn Autery, 39, a professor, who had been flying home in New York. “I worry how much it will cost me to fix this.”
Industry experts warned that some passengers forced to land in Europe may have to remain in transit rooms if they lack the paperwork to leave the airport.
Global flight schedules will also be affected, since airplanes and crews will now be out of position, which forces carriers to quickly reconfigure their networks.
Hotels prices around Heathrow jumped, with reserve sites that offer rooms for £ 500 ($ 645), approximately five times normal price levels.
“Passengers are advised not to travel to the airport and must communicate with their airline for more information,” said Heathrow. “We apologize for discomfort.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6Jofrhe7lm
A CALL OF ATTENTION
The executives of the airlines, the electrical engineers and the passengers questioned how the Great Britain door to the world could be forced to close for a fire, by large.
Heathrow, and the other great important airports in London, have been beaten by other interruptions in recent years, more recently by an automated door failure and a crisis of the air traffic control system, both in 2023.
The images on social networks showed the airport terminals near the dark during the night, and the British energy minister, Ed Miliband, said it seemed that the “catastrophic” fire had prevented the energy support system from working.
Philip Ingram, a former British army intelligence officer, said Heathrow’s inability to continue operating vulnerability exposed in the critical national infrastructure of Great Britain.
“It’s a attention call,” he said Reuters. “There is no way that Heathrow is completely eliminated due to a failure in a substation of power.”
Willie Walsh, head of the Global Airlines Iata body and former Chief of British Airways, said Heathrow had once again lowered passengers.
“How is that critical infrastructure, of national and global importance, depends totally on a single source of energy without an alternative,” he said. “If that is the case, as it seems, then it is a clear failure of planning at the airport.”
Heathrow said he had diesel generators and uninterrupted food sources to get airplanes and evacuate passengers safely. All these systems operated as expected. But with the airport consuming as much energy as a small city, he said that he could not execute all his operations safely in the backup systems.
Energy supply experts said the type of fire that exploded during the night was extremely rare, but added that there should be enough alternative supplies to put everyone online quickly.
The National Network said in 1400 GMT that the network had reconfigured to restore the power, but only interim, and was carrying out more work to return to normal operations.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he was receiving regular updates about the incident.
Midnight flight scrack
As the scale of the interruption became clear, the flights operated by the airlines such as Jetblue, American Airlines, Air Canada, Air India, Delta Air, Qantas, United Airlines, British Airways and Virgin de IAG were diverted or returned to their origin airports in the middle of the night, according to data from the Flight analysis signature cirium.
According to the Flightradar24 flight tracking website, at least 120 incoming flights to Heathrow had to divert other airports.
British Airways had 341 flights scheduled to land in Heathrow on Friday.
“Heathrow is one of the main centers of the world,” said Ian Petchenik, Flightradar24 spokesman. “This will interrupt the operations of airlines worldwide.”
The impact was immediate. Qantas Airways sent its perth flight to Paris, a flight from United Airlines New York went to Shannon, Ireland and a United Airlines flight from San Francisco owed land in Washington, DC instead of London.
Some flights from the USA would say in the air and return to their starting point.
Chaotic days ahead
Travel experts said the interruption would extend far beyond the carefully choreographed networks of Heathrow Airlines depend on the airplanes and equipment being in specific locations at specific times. Dozens of aircraft carriers will have to hastily reconfigure their networks to move airplanes and crews.
“The other question is: ‘What will airlines do to deal with the accumulation of passengers?’
“They will be a couple of chaotic days.” A Heathrow spokesman told Reuters in an email that there was no clarity about when energy would be restored, and expected a significant interruption in the next few days.
In the field in London, several houses and businesses were without energy. “Firefighters have taken 29 people to a safe place for neighboring properties, and as a precaution, a 200 -meter cord has been established, with about 150 evacuated people,” said the Fire Brigade.
