London: UK’s Heathro Airport said it would close on Friday after a huge fire in an electric substation nearby, disrupting the flying program worldwide.
The London Fire Brigade said that about 70 firefightings were dealing with the explosion in the west of London, causing large -scale power withdrawal in Europe’s fifth and busy airport in the world.
Huge orange fire flames and smoke could be seen shooting in the sky. About 150 people were evacuated from nearby buildings and thousands of assets were without electricity.
The fire brigade said the cause of the fire was not known.
Heathro Airport said in a post on X, “To maintain the safety of our passengers and colleagues, Heathro will close by 23h59 on 21 March.”
According to the flight tracking website flightradar24, at least 120 inbound flights for Heathro were diverted to other airports.
It said that at least 1,351 flights from Heathro will be affected on Friday, not those flights that may be canceled or delayed due to being out of the aircraft.
The British Airways had 341 flights to land in Heathro on Friday.
“Heathro is one of the major centers in the world,” said Ian Petchanic, spokesman for Flightradar24. “It is going to disrupt the operation of airlines worldwide.”
The effect was immediate. Qantas Airways sent his flight from Perth to Paris, a United Airlines New York flight Shannon, Ireland and a United Airlines flight from San Francisco was due to land in Washington, DC instead of London.
Some flights from the US were roaming in mid-hwa and returning to the matter of their departure.
Chaotic day ahead
Travel experts said that disintegration would spread beyond Heathro
Carefully choreographers of the airlines depend on specific locations on airplanes and crew at specific places on airplanes and crews. Dozens of air carriers must quickly configure your network to move aircraft and crew.
“The other question is, ‘What will the airlines do to deal with the backlogs of the passengers?”, Said the travel industry analyst Henry Hartvelt with the atmosphere research group. “This is going to be a chaotic couple of days.”
A heathro spokesperson told Roots In an email that there was no clarity when electricity was restored, and he expected significant disruption in the coming days.
On the ground in London, many houses and businesses were without electricity. The fire brigade said, “Firefighters have motivated 29 people to protect against neighboring properties, and as a precaution, a 200 -meter cordon has been installed, with about 150 people out,” said the fire brigade.
