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LAST UPDATE | 21 Mar
HEATHROW AIRPORT RESUMED “some flights” this evening as its chief executive apologised to stranded passengers and defended the response to an “unprecedented” loss of power caused by a fire.
The fire at an electrical substation that supplies electricity to the airport early this morning led to the cancellation of more than 1,300 flights, the closure of the airport all day and the launch of a counter-terrorism probe.
Thousands of homes were also impacted, with roughly 100 people requiring evacuation overnight.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Heathrow said staff at the airport “have worked tirelessly since the incident to ensure a speedy recovery”.
“We’re now safely able to restart flights, prioritising repatriation and relocation of aircraft. Please do not travel to the airport unless your airline has advised you to do so.”
The spokesperson said they hope to run a full operation tomorrow, adding that their priority remains the safety of passengers and those working at the airport.
We hope to run a full operation tomorrow and will provide further information shortly. Our priority remains the safety of our passengers and those working at the airport. We apologise for the inconvenience caused by this incident. (2/2)
— Heathrow Airport (@HeathrowAirport) March 21, 2025
The fire at the substation is thought to be “non-suspicious”, according to the London Fire Brigade (LFB).
“LFB Fire Investigation Officers, supported by a scientific advisor, have been working closely with the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) to investigate the cause of this fire,” a statement from LFB read.
“The MPS has confirmed that the fire is believed to be non-suspicious. LFB’s investigation will now focus on the electrical distribution equipment.”
Police seemingly backed up the LFB’s findings, saying in a statement this evening that they “are not treating this incident as suspicious” – although investigations are ongoing.
Aer Lingus has said it is planning to operate its normal schedule to and from Heathrow tomorrow.
A spokesperson said the airline’s customer care teams are currently “working hard” to provide their impacted customers “with the options available to them”, including applying for refunds and changing flights without a change fee applying.
British Airways said it had received clearance to depart eight long-haul flights from 7pm to cities including Johannesburg, Singapore and Riyadh.
Heathrow’s chief executive Thomas Woldbye apologised to passengers disrupted by the closure of the airport but defended its response, saying “this is as big as it gets for our airport” and that “we cannot guard ourselves 100%”.
“I’d like to stress that this has been an incident of major severity. It’s not a small fire,” Woldbye said.
We have lost power equal to that of a mid-sized city and our backup systems have been working as they should but they are not sized to run the entire airport.
Asked if there is a weak point in Heathrow’s power system, he said: “You can say that but of course contingencies of certain sizes we cannot guard ourselves against 100% and this is one of them.
“This has been a major incident. I mean, short of anybody getting hurt, this is as big as it gets for our airport and we are actually coming back quite fast I would say, when you consider the amount of systems that we have to shut down then bring back up and make sure that they’re safe.”
Woldbye said that the airport expects to return to “100% operation” tomorrow and told passengers that they should come to the airport “as they normally would”, adding that there was no reason to come earlier.
Power was restored in Terminal 4 of the airport this afternoon.
A spokesperson for the UK’s National Grid said the network has been reconfigured to restore all impacted customers, including the ability to resupply Heathrow.
BREAKING: Heathrow Outage 'as big as it gets'
— Sky News (@SkyNews) March 21, 2025
Heathrow airport Chief Executive Thomas Woldbye gives a statement on the closure of the airport.
Follow live updates: https://t.co/VRZ5iSDJrN
📺 Sky 501, Virgin 602, Freeview 233 and YouTube pic.twitter.com/SOe6Tbncoe
“This is an interim solution while we carry out further work at North Hyde to return the substation and our network to normal operation,” they said.
Heathrow previously said it did not have “clarity on when power may be reliably restored” and warned that “we expect significant disruption over the coming days”.
Counter-terrorism officers from London’s Metropolitan Police said there is currently no indication of foul play but investigators are keeping an “open mind” at this time, as counter-terrorism units took the lead on the investigation this afternoon due to the impact on critical infrastructure.
More than 200,000 passengers flying from Heathrow, home of Europe’s busiest airport, had their flights cancelled as a result of the fire.
Online flight tracking service FlightRadar24 this morning said the closure would affect at least 1,351 flights to and from Heathrow. It said 120 flights to the airport were in the air when the closure was announced, some of which were redirected in the air to Shannon Airport in Co Clare.
Heathrow is the UK’s largest airport, with more than 83.9 million passengers travelling through its terminals in 2024. Eurostar, or the Chunnel, has said it will be operating more trains between London and Paris in the coming days, to assist with passengers affected by the flight cancellations.
Over 60 flights were impacted on the island of Ireland by the Heathrow cancellations.
Six Heathrow flights, three inbound and three outbound, were cancelled at Shannon Airport while 34 flights, 17 inbound and 17 outbound, were cancelled at Dublin Airport today.
Two flights, one inbound and one outbound, were cancelled at Knock Airport and six flights, three inbound and three outbound, were cancelled at Cork airport.
At least 15 flights were cancelled, both ways, at Belfast City and Derry airports.
Dublin Airport cannot accept diversions. Graeme McQueen, communications manager with the DAA, said passengers should be prepared for further cancellations over the weekend.
Dozens flights were diverted to Shannon Airport, Gatwick, Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, as well as airports in the United States and Canada, open-source flight tracking websites show.
Happy to help our colleagues at London @HeathrowAirport today by facilitating a number of diversions at Shannon Airport.
— Shannon Airport (@ShannonAirport) March 21, 2025
This morning's first diversion landed safely at 04.26am ✈️
(1/3) pic.twitter.com/ogdkPRzixJ
Six flights from Toronto, Atlanta, Bridgetown Barbados, Boston, Orlando and Newark landed at Shannon Airport last night. The operators at the airport, as well as the airlines that landed there, have organised accommodation for the passengers nearby as travel companies arrange alternative transport.
Shannon CEO, Mary Considine, told RTÉ Radio One’s Morning Ireland today that all operations are running as normal today and more diverted flights may arrive in Shannon due to the nature of the evolving situation.
Vice President of the Irish Travel Agent Association Paul Hacken told the same programme this morning that passengers who booked with travel agents should contact those companies directly.
He said airlines that are impacted are doing “all that they can” to assist with passengers that need to get to Heathrow, adding that the only airline that appears not to be impacted is Ryanair.
The budget airline sought to take advantage of the opportunity online this morning, advertising “eight rescue flights” to Stanstead today and tomorrow. Tickets for the Ryanair flights will be on offer this morning.
Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks said on X there was a large-scale power outage in Hayes, Hounslow and the surrounding areas impacting more than 16,300 homes.
A National Grid spokesperson said the fire had damaged equipment and they “working at speed to restore power supplies as quickly as possible”. Ten fire engines and 70 firefighters were at the scene, as of 6am this morning.
Firefighters led 29 people from surrounding properties to safety. Footage posted to social media showed huge flames and large plumes of smoke coming from the facility.
Speaking to broadcasters at the scene in Hayes, deputy commissioner Jonathan Smith said: “The fire involved a transformer comprising of 25,000 litres of cooling oil fully alight.
“This created a major hazard due to the still live high-voltage equipment and the nature of the oil-fuelled fire.”
The brigade said nearly 200 calls had been received in relation to the incident with crews from Hayes, Heathrow, Hillingdon, Southall and surrounding areas on the scene. Emergency services were called to the scene at 11.23pm last night and the cause of the fire is yet to be determined.
Goulbourne said firefighters urged people to take safety precautions as crews worked to extinguish the blaze.
“This will be a prolonged incident, with crews remaining on scene throughout the night,” he said. As we head into the morning, disruption is expected to increase, and we urge people to avoid the area wherever possible.”
London Ambulance Service and Metropolitan Police both confirmed they were on scene supporting fire crews.
Includes reporting by Diarmuid Pepper, Muiris Ó Cearbhaill, Valerie Flynn and Andrew Walsh
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