More than 1,300 flights, carrying an estimated 145,000 passengers, due to land or depart at London’s Heathrow Airport were either canceled or diverted on Friday after a nearby fire wiped out its power supply.
The disruption began in the early hours of Friday UK time following a massive blaze in North Hyde Electricity Substation in Hayes, some five miles from the airport, which is one of the busiest aviation hubs in the world after Atlanta, Dubai and Tokyo.
According to data on air traffic monitor Flightradar24, diversions and cancellations began at 4.45 a.m. local time with a British Airways Johannesburg flight the first to be impacted as it was diverted to London’s other main airport of Gatwick.
The first early-morning arrivals out of the U.S. were not so lucky with a BA flight out of Boston and a United Airlines plane out of New York landing in Ireland’s Shannon Airport instead. A number of overnight flights out of L.A. were asked to turn back three to four hours into their journeys.
Heathrow-bound planes also have been sent to continental European airports such as Paris’ Charles de Gaulle and Amsterdam’s Schiphol.
Heathrow is expected to be closed for the remainder of the day, with people being asked not to travel there under any circumstances.
London’s Metropolitan police said its counter-terrorism command was leading the investigation into the cause of the fire but emphasized that there “no indication of foul play” as yet.
Travel disruption is expected to continue into the coming days.
