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The first aircraft to arrive in Heathrow came after 18 hours of an electrical substation fire that caused an extensive power outage. That was the biggest fire in the region and closed down Europe’s busiest airport, which stayed closed for roughly 18 hours. This was the first time an inferno followed by an electrical substation has taken place.
After Heathrow airport closed, it aided in flight control has to have a global impact. With the closure and opening of the airport, the British Airways jet arrived just in time for sunset. FlightRadar 24 reported that over 1350 flights towards and from the closed Heathrow airport was affected and now it will take days post the fire as passengers will need to reschedule their holidays whilst the airline will have to withdraw the crew and planes.
Post fire, the authorities were unclear about the root cause of the explosion in West London. Various sources believe that after the blaze executed through the substation, a large number of fireballs along with heavy smoke was emitted. That would substantiate the explosion claim. Over 120 flights at the time of the announcement was made, some of these had to be redirected towards Shannon, Gatwick, or Charles de Gaulle.
When Virgin Atlantic announced their plane would be diverted to Glasgow, Hayes had already boarded the flight from New York to London.
Speaking to the BBC while disembarking in Scotland, he said, "It was a red-eye flight and I’d already had a full day, so I don’t even know how long I’ve been up for." Hayes continued, "Fortunately, I was able to contact my wife and she graciously booked me a train ticket to Euston, but it’s going to be an incredibly long day."
During January, Heathrow saw over 6.3 million international passengers, an increase of 5 percent compared to the previous year. This makes Heathrow one of the busiest airports in the world.
The chaos caused in the UK due to the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull volcano in 2010 set a precedent for how travel is disrupted in the US. The disruption caused due to the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull was greater than the travel chaos faced from west to east in the US.
The authorities have yet to determine the cause of the enormous fire approximately 3 kilometers from the airport. However, Ed Miliband stated "there's no suggestion of foul play."
The Metropolitan Police explained that the counterterrorism division took control of the case because they believed, based on the location of the fire as well as the electrical substation’s impact on the critical national infrastructure, that they could identify the terrorism’s motivating factor in the least amount of time possible.
Heathrow stated that the airport’s emergency backup power supply worked, but it was not sufficient to operate the entire terminal; therefore, the airport was forced to shut down for the entire day.
The airport said, “Passengers should avoid any travel to the terminal until it is announced that the airport is open. We expect significant disruption over the coming days.”
Critics stated that Britain was clearly unprepared for disasters and potential attacks after seeing the widespread impacts of the uncontrolled blaze and the fact that a single fire being able to disable Europe’s busiest airport is shocking.
Alan Mendoza, Executive Director of the Henry Jackson Society, a security think tank, said that “The UK’s critical national infrastructure is not sufficiently hardened for anywhere near the level it would need to be at to give us confidence this won’t happen again.” Mendoza elaborated, “If one fire can shut down Heathrow … it tells you something’s badly wrong with our system of management of such disasters.”
Issuing an apology and promising a thorough investigation was Prime Minister Starmer's spokesman, Tom Wells. He said,” There are no questions or answers about the authorities and a thorough investigation is necessary so that this scale of disruption does not happen again.”
Heathrow, which is at the center of constructing a new third runway, was affected by Britain's disaster where the air traffic control system faced a breakdown resulting in limited takeoffs and landings at the peak time of travel seasons.
For Heathrow, the initial expectation was to reopen sometime before midnight, but warned that there would be “significant disruption over the coming days,” so it was preferrable to not travel to the airport for any reason until it fully reopens.
Previously announcing closures, British Airways planned to reopen after burning a few candles till 7pm, as they claimed to have been cleared for eight long-haul flights to depart. A United Airlines spokesperson later also confirmed that they are looking to follow through with most of their Friday departures to the city.
Consultant Anita Mendiratta, however, had another perspective as she felt that there still seems to be a long way to travel after the first flight gets taken. Mobilizing the plane is no small process; bringing in the cargo carriers, crew along, and then starting the progesterone for rebooking are all parts of the daunting list that makes the few days post resumption look overwhelming.
The rest of Zs decied to catch their beauty sleep as Mark and wife were dreaming of planes flying alongside over the Atlantic, only to have their dreams cut short as they woke from New York’s JFK, to the pilot finally telling them they have returned to New York.
Doherty scornfully described the situation as "quite England… they do not have a back-up plan for such scenarios. There isn’t any contingency plan devised."
One family of five hoping to travel from Heathrow to Dallas eventually made it to the airport, still holding onto hopes that their flight would be taking off, even though it was marked as delayed.
But when further relatives arrived at the airport escorted a police officer on a ‘no flight’ mission, Andrea Sri’s family found out the truth. “That was utterly pointless. I’m still lost,” was her response to the whole story. Sri resides in London. “We made an attempt to call British Airways, but it was too early, and the line opens at 8.”
Those who were forced to another city because of the stream of flights realized they needed to book a ticket to continue to London. Having taken the other row since around the column of the Qantas airline, Singapore and Perth came to Paris as the AUIS for the people’s bus before the London training set. It also likely included the pony-train under the English Channel.
Having no hallway out of Heathrow budget airline Ryanair has officially named Stansted, another London airport Dublin’s eight buses for the parties on Friday and saturdays.
All flights to and from the airport have unfortunately been suspended.
While on duty close to Heathrow on Thursday night, Matthew Muirhead recalls stepping outside with a colleague only to discover smoke coming from an electrical substation accompanied by the sound of sirens.
A bright flash of white was illuminated, accompanied by a complete power outage to the town, Muirhead said.
In response to the blaze, London Fire Brigade dispatched 10 engines with 70 firefighters tackling the fire. Approximately 150 local residents had to be evacuated from the area surrounding the power station as the fire continues to get out of control.
As a result of the fire, 67,000 customers were left without power, most of which was restored when the sun came up according to the fire brigade.
Due to the flying restrictions, Heathrow normally opens up to flights at 6 a.m. but this past Friday, there were no flights scheduled for the morning. As James Henderson, a local who has lived next to the airport for over 20 years explains.
“Currently, living next to Heathrow presents a lot of noise from planes coming in every 90 seconds or so combined with the traffic. However, at this point in time, all that can be heard is birds singing.”
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