LONDON:Thousands of travelers stranded by a huge fire near London’s Heathrow, Europe’s busiest airport, scrambled to find ways to get home and reunite with their families on Friday as they faced what could be days of disruptions.
Heathrow was shut as around 70 firefighters sought to put down the blaze at a nearby electrical substation in the west of London that knocked out power at the airport as well as the area’s back-up power system.
Airlines advised passengers not to travel to the airport, and Britain’s energy minister Ed Miliband warned it would take time to recover from the “catastrophic” fire.
Waiting at central London’s Paddington station, which normally offers express train service to Heathrow, US traveler Tyler Prieb contacted airlines Friday morning, hoping to find a new flight back to his home in Nashville, Tennessee.
“I’m sure everybody is going to need a new flight somewhere, somehow. So I’m just trying to get ahead of that the best I can,” said Prieb, 36, who was in London for work and to see friends.
“Hopefully, it will just take me an extra day to get back to my wife and my daughter. And they are probably wishing I would be home already,” he said.
In the meantime, Prieb said he had asked OpenAI’s chatbot ChatGPT for ways to pass the time.
“I thought maybe I’d go explore another city somewhere,” he said.
Heathrow was due to handle 1,351 flights during the day, flying up to 291,000 passengers.
A Heathrow spokesperson told Reuters in an email that there was no clarity on when power would be restored, and they expected significant disruption over the coming days.
John Moriarty, another US traveler, listened attentively to his phone’s speaker, hoping to get through to his airline’s customer service helpline.
The 75-year-old said he was anxious to return to Boston to see his daughter, who had traveled from New York to visit him.
“All the lines are busy, so I might be here another day. Not the worst thing in the world. (London) is my favorite city, but I need to be home,” 75-year-old John Moriarty said.
Travel experts said the disruption would extend far beyond Heathrow, and global flight schedules will be affected more broadly, as many aircraft will now be out of position.
Mahmoud Ali, 40, an employee of Domino’s Pizza in London, had been due to fly to his native Pakistan to be with his wife and children, who he has not seen since last summer.
“They are waiting for me. I’m trying to call the airline and Heathrow (to find out) what time the situation will be resolved,” he said.
The fire has also forced the rerouting of incoming flights, leaving passengers unsure of where they will land.
Some flights from the United States were turning around mid-air and returning to their point of departure.
Adrian Spender, who works at British retailer Tesco, said in a post on X that he was on an Airbus A380 that had been headed for Heathrow.
“#Heathrow no idea where we are going yet. Currently over Austria,” he wrote.
‘I need to be home’: stranded Heathrow passengers separated from loved ones
https://arab.news/5c2c4
‘I need to be home’: stranded Heathrow passengers separated from loved ones
- Fire at electrical substation causes Heathrow shutdown
- Global flight schedules affected, incoming flights rerouted
Judge says Georgetown student can be released from immigration detention as case proceeds
VIRGINIA, USA: A federal judge on Wednesday ordered that a Georgetown scholar from India be released from immigration detention after he was detained in the Trump administration’s crackdown on foreign college students.
Khan Suri was arrested by masked, plain-clothed officers on the evening of March 17 outside his apartment complex in Arlington, Virginia. Officials said his visa was revoked because of his social media posts and his wife’s connection to Gaza as a Palestinian American.
They accused him of supporting Hamas, which the US has designated as a terrorist organization.
By the time Khan Suri’s petition was filed, authorities had already put him on a plane to Louisiana without allowing him to update his family or lawyer, Khan Suri’s attorneys said.
A few days later, he was moved again to Texas.
German Chancellor Merz says Israel should bring hostages back alive
- Merz said that in principle it should be possible for an Israeli prime minister to visit Germany
BERLIN: Germany wants to see the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, including Germans, brought back alive and Israel should consider this in its military actions in the strip, Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Wednesday.
Asked whether Germany would implement an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Merz said that in principle it should be possible for an Israeli prime minister to visit Germany.
How this could happen would be clarified when necessary, he said at the joint press conference with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres in Berlin, adding that no bilateral visits by him or Netanyahu were currently planned.
Merz said future financial support for UNRWA, the United Nations’ agency for Palestinian refugees, was conditional on the organization being reformed.
Italy’s Meloni urges Israel's Netanyahu to respect international law in Gaza
- Giorgia Meloni said her conversations in recent months with Israel's Netanyahu were 'often difficult'
ROME: Israel must respect international law in its military operation in Gaza, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Wednesday, calling the humanitarian situation in the Palestinian enclave increasingly “dramatic and unjustifiable.”
Israel invaded Gaza after the Hamas-led attack on southern Israeli communities on October 7, 2023, and has recently announced plans for an expanded offensive to defeat militant group Hamas.
“Over the past months I have spoken with Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu on several occasions, and the conversations have often been difficult,” Meloni told a question time session in the Italian lower house of parliament.
More than 52,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive, according to local health authorities. The military campaign has left Gaza on the brink of famine, aid groups and international agencies say.
“I have always recalled the urgency of finding a way to end the hostilities and respect international law and international humanitarian law. A request that I renew today,” Meloni said.
Israeli strikes intensified this week, killing dozens in northern Gaza, locals have said.
French President Emmanuel Macron this week also criticized Netanyahu’s policy in Gaza, calling it shameful. The Israeli leader struck back accusing Macron of siding with Hamas.
Meloni’s government has been one of Israel’s most vocal supporters within Europe, but there has been growing unease within parts of her coalition over Israel’s relentless and long-running military campaign.
Japan grounds military training aircraft after crash leaves 2 crew members missing
- The crashed plane was a 36-year-old T-4 operated out of Nyutabaru Air Base
- It was not fitted with a voice recorder or a flight data recorder
TOKYO: Japan grounded most of its aging military training aircraft on Wednesday after one of the planes crashed minutes after take off.
Two crew are missing after the T-4 training aircraft operated by the Japan Air Self-Defense Force crashed after taking off from Komaki Air Base, in the central Japanese prefecture of Aichi, officials said.
The force said the plane was lost from radar two minutes after departure. The authorities are searching for the missing aircraft and its crew in an area near a reservoir known as the Iruka pond, officials said. The reservoir, in the city of Inuyama, is about 10 kilometers (6 miles) northeast of the air base.
The military has grounded temporarily nearly 200 T-4s until the cause of the accident is identified and safety checks and training are carried out, Hiroaki Uchikura, the air force chief of staff, told a news conference late Wednesday.
The crashed plane was a 36-year-old T-4 operated out of Nyutabaru Air Base, in the southern prefecture of Miyazaki. It was not fitted with a voice recorder or a flight data recorder.
Defense Minister Gen Nakatani earlier Wednesday told reporters that parts of the aircraft have been found at the crash site. Officials were also preparing to collect fuel apparently leaked from the aircraft and floating in the reservoir, Nakatani said.
Lifesaving equipment and helmets of the crew were also found, Uchikura said.
Witnesses told the NHK national broadcaster that they heard a loud noise like thunder, followed by sirens of police cars and fire engines.
The T-4 was returning to Nyutabaru air base after its crew had earlier helped deliver a F-15 fighter jet to Komaki Air Base for scheduled maintenance, Uchikura said.
A captain with more than 1,000 hours of flight experience had piloted the F-15, while a first lieutenant piloted the T-4. Both were in the T-4 on their way back to Komaki when the incident happened.
The crash is the latest in a series of defense aircraft accidents in recent years.
In April 2024, two SH-60K navy reconnaissance helicopters crashed during nighttime anti-submarine training near Torishima island, about 600 kilometers south of Tokyo, leaving all eight crewmembers dead.
In 2023, an army UH-60JA Black Hawk helicopter on a reconnaissance mission crashed off a southern island of Miyako, with the loss of 10 crew.
UK’s Starmer condemns ‘attack on our democracy’ after fires at homes linked to him
- The remarks by Starmer during weekly prime minister’s questions were his first since the fires came to light earlier this week
- Police said they have been granted a further 36 hours to question the man
LONDON: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told lawmakers Wednesday that recent arson attacks on properties linked to him represent “an attack on all of us, on democracy and the values that we stand for.”
The remarks by Starmer during weekly prime minister’s questions were his first since the fires came to light earlier this week.
The attacks were condemned by leaders across the House of Commons, including the Conservative Party’s Kemi Badenoch, who described them as “completely unacceptable.”
On Tuesday, London’s Metropolitan Police arrested a 21-year-old man in southeast London on suspicion of starting fires at Starmer’s private house, another property and a car connected to the politician. No injuries were reported from any of the fires.
In a statement Wednesday, police said they have been granted a further 36 hours to question the man, who is being held at a London police station. That means he can be questioned until Friday morning.
Police said the suspect was detained on suspicion of arson with intent to endanger life after an early morning fire Monday damaged the door of the house in Kentish Town, north London, where Starmer and his family lived before he was elected to lead the country last July.
Starmer moved with his family to the prime minister’s official Downing Street residence after taking office.
Counterterrorism detectives, who are leading the investigation because it involves the prime minister, are also looking into connections between a car fire Thursday near Starmer’s house and another fire Sunday outside a house nearby that has been converted into apartments and which he has a connection to.
Authorities are investigating whether there was state involvement as well as looking at other potential motivations.
“A key line of enquiry is whether the fires are linked due to the two premises and the vehicle all having previous links to the same high-profile public figure,” said Cmdr. Dominic Murphy, head of counterterrorism at the Metropolitan Police.
Starmer’s former house has attracted protesters in the past. Last year, three pro-Palestinian activists were arrested and charged with public order offenses after unfurling a banner covered in red handprints outside the building.
