Chaos as Fire Shuts Down Heathrow for Entirety of Friday

More than 1K flights to, from airport have been affected
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Mar 21, 2025 3:18 AM CDT
Fire Shuts Down One of World's Busiest Airports
This photo provided by London Fire Brigade shows a fire at the North Hyde electrical substation, which caught fire Thursday night and led to the closure of Heathrow Airport in London, Friday, March 21 2025.   (London Fire Brigade via AP)

Britain's Heathrow Airport was closed for the day Friday after a fire knocked out its power, disrupting flights for hundreds of thousands of passengers at Europe's busiest travel hub. At least 1,350 flights to and from the London airport were affected, including several from US cities that were canceled, flight tracking service FlightRadar 24 said. Several jets were diverted to Gatwick Airport outside London, Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, and Ireland's Shannon Airport, tracking services showed.

  • Global travel was snarled by a fire at a local electrical substation that broke out Thursday night, the New York Times reports. The London Fire Brigade sent around 70 firefighters to the scene after a transformer at the substation caught fire, sending flames soaring into the sky. Authorities said the fire was brought under control around 9am local time.
  • "To maintain the safety of our passengers and colleagues, we have no choice but to close Heathrow" for the full day, the airport said. "We expect significant disruption over the coming days, and passengers should not travel to the airport under any circumstances until the airport reopens."

  • Thousands of homes also lost power and about 150 people were evacuated. The cause of the fire is yet to be determined.
  • Heathrow is one of the world's busiest airports for international travel, the AP reports. It had its busiest January on record earlier this year, with more than 6.3 million passengers, up more than 5% for the same period last year. January also was the 11th month in a row it averaged over 200,000 passengers a day, with the airport citing transatlantic travel as a key contributor.
  • Heathrow normally opens for flights at 6am due to nighttime flying restrictions. It said the closure would last until 11:59pm Friday. National Rail canceled all trains to and from the airport.
  • "The term 'nightmare' is too weak of a descriptor to paint a true picture of the chaos this will cause," says BBC travel correspondent Sean Dilley. "Every type of crisis meeting you can imagine is taking place as authorities at Heathrow, and at airlines who rely on the world's second-largest airport, work furiously to implement backup plans."
(More Heathrow Airport stories.)

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