LONDON: Heathrow Airport said it planned to resume some flights Friday after a large fire at an electrical substation knocked out power to Europe’s busiest flight hub and disrupted global travel for hundreds of thousands of passengers.
The London airport said it would begin flights for passengers stranded when their flights were diverted to other airports in Europe and to get airplanes back in the right place. It hopes to be in full operation on Saturday.
At least 1,350 flights to and from Heathrow were affected, flight tracking service FlightRadar 24 said, and the impact was likely to last several days as passengers try to reschedule their travel and airlines work to get planes and crew to the right places.
Authorities do not know what caused the fire but so far found have no evidence it was suspicious.
Residents in west London described hearing a large explosion, followed by a fireball and clouds of smoke, when the blaze ripped through the electrical substation near the airport.
Some 120 flights were in the air when the closure was announced, with some turned around and others diverted to Gatwick Airport outside London, Charles de Gaulle Airport near Paris or Ireland’s Shannon Airport, tracking services showed.
Lawrence Hayes was three-quarters of the way to London from New York when Virgin Atlantic announced they were being diverted to Glasgow.
“It was a red-eye flight and I’d already had a full day, so I don’t even know how long I’ve been up for,” Hayes told the BBC as he was getting off the plane in Scotland. “Luckily I managed to get hold of my wife and she’s kindly booked me a train ticket to get back to Euston, but it’s going to be an incredibly long day.”
Heathrow is one of the world’s busiest airports for international travel. It had its busiest January on record earlier this year, with more than 6.3 million passengers, up more than 5 percent from the same period last year.
Still, the disruption Friday fell short of the one caused by the 2010 eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano, which spewed clouds of ash into the atmosphere and created trans-Atlantic air travel chaos for months.
Unclear what caused the fire but foul play not suspected
It was too early to determine what sparked the huge blaze about 2 miles (3 kilometers) from the airport, but there’s “no suggestion” of foul play, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said.
The Metropolitan Police force said counterterrorism detectives were leading the investigation because of their ability to find the cause quickly and because of the location of the electrical substation fire and its impact on critical national infrastructure.
Heathrow said its backup power supply designed for emergencies worked as expected, but it was not enough to run the whole airport. It said it had no choice but to close the airport for the day.
“We expect significant disruption over the coming days, and passengers should not travel to the airport under any circumstances until the airport reopens,” the airport said.
The widespread impact of the fire that took seven hours to control led to criticism that Britain was ill prepared for disaster or some type of attack if a single blaze could shut down Europe’s busiest airport.
“The UK’s critical national infrastructure is not sufficiently hardened for anywhere near the level it would need to be at to give us confidence this won’t happen again,” said Alan Mendoza, the executive director of the Henry Jackson Society, a security think tank. “If one fire can shut down Heathrow’s primary systems and then apparently the backup systems, as well, it tells you something’s badly wrong with our system of management of such disasters.”
Tom Wells, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Keir Starmer, acknowledged that authorities had questions to answer and said a rigorous investigation was needed to make sure “this scale of disruption does not happen again.”
Heathrow — where the UK government plans to build a third runway — was at the heart of a shorter disruption in 2023 when Britain’s air traffic control system was hit by a breakdown that slowed takeoffs and landings across the UK on one of the busiest travel days of the year.
Disruption could last days
Heathrow had said it expected to reopen Saturday, but that it anticipated “significant disruption over the coming days and passengers should not travel to the airport under any circumstances until the airport reopens.”
Even after the airport reopens, it will take several days to mobilize planes, cargo carriers, and crews and rebook passengers, said aviation consultant Anita Mendiratta.
“It’s not only about resuming with tomorrow’s flights, it’s the backlog and the implications that have taken place,” she said. “Crew and aircraft, many are not where they’re supposed to be right now. So the recalculation of this is going to be intense.”
The London Fire Brigade sent 10 engines and around 70 firefighters to control the blaze and about 150 people were evacuated from their homes near the power station.
Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks said in a post on X the power outage affected more than 16,300 homes.
Diverted, canceled and in limbo
At Heathrow, a family of five traveling to Dallas showed up in the hopes their flight home — still listed as delayed — would take off.
But when Andrea Sri brought her brother, sister-in-law and their three children to the airport, they were told by police that there would be no flight.
“It was a waste of time. Very confusing,” said Sri, who lives in London. “We tried to get in touch with British Airways, but they don’t open their telephone line until 8 a.m.”
Travelers who were diverted to other cities found themselves trying to book travel onward to London. Qantas airlines sent flights from Singapore and Perth, Australia, to Paris, where it said it would bus people to London, a process likely to also include a train shuttle beneath the English Channel.
Budget airline Ryanair, which doesn’t operate out of Heathrow, said it added eight “rescue flights” between Dublin and Stansted, another London airport, to transport stranded passengers Friday and Saturday.
National Rail canceled all trains to and from the airport.
Blaze lit up the sky and darkened homes
Matthew Muirhead was working Thursday night near Heathrow when he stepped outside with a colleague and noticed smoke rising from an electrical substation and heard sirens crying out.
“We saw a bright flash of white, and all the lights in town went out,” he said.
Flights normally begin landing and taking off at Heathrow at 6 a.m. due to nighttime flying restrictions. But the skies were silent Friday morning.
“Living near Heathrow is noisy, there are planes every 90 seconds or so, plus the constant hum of traffic, but you get used to it, to the point of no longer noticing,” said James Henderson, who has lived next to the airport for more than 20 years. “Today is different, you can hear the birds singing.”
Heathrow says some flights will resume after a fire cut power to Europe’s busiest airport
https://arab.news/brc8z
Heathrow says some flights will resume after a fire cut power to Europe’s busiest airport
- The London airport said it would begin flights for passengers stranded when their flights were diverted to other airports in Europe and to get airplanes back in the right place
- At least 1,350 flights to and from Heathrow were affected, flight tracking service FlightRadar 24 said
German Chancellor Merz says Israel should bring hostages back alive
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.
How escaped French drug kingpin evaded capture for months
- His escape left two prison officers dead and triggered a massive manhunt for the escaped convict dubbed “la Mouche“
- A network of accomplices suspected of organizing the escape, including a childhood friend of Amra and rapper Koba LaD, allegedly helped the fugitive stay off the authorities’ radar
PARIS: Managing to stay “one step ahead” of investigators, drug trafficker Mohamed Amra evaded capture for nine months following a deadly jail break one year ago that shocked France.
His escape left two prison officers dead and triggered a massive manhunt for the escaped convict dubbed “la Mouche” (The Fly).
On the run for nine months, he was re-arrested only in February, near a shopping center in Romania’s capital, Bucharest, then extradited to France.
On the one-year anniversary of the attack, French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday paid tribute to the first prison officers killed in France in the line of duty since 1992, visiting the site of the attack and highlighting new measures in France’s push to combat organized crime.
On May 14, 2024, a car crashed head-on into a prison van at a toll booth in France’s northern Normandy region.
Moments later, a second car pulled up and four armed men jumped out, killing prison officers Arnaud Garcia and Fabrice Moello and leaving three others wounded.
At the time of the deadly ambush, Amra already had a long history of convictions for violent crimes that started when he was only 15.
After the assailants whisked the 30-year-old Normandy native into a waiting vehicle, French authorities launched a massive operation to track down the man described as “public enemy number one.”
But a source close to the case said Amra was “always one step ahead.”
Public prosecutor Laure Beccuau confirmed that the Frenchman had been holed up in the city of Compiegne, then headed further north to Rouen before eventually making his way to eastern Europe.
A network of accomplices suspected of organizing the escape, including a childhood friend of Amra and rapper Koba LaD, allegedly helped the fugitive stay off the authorities’ radar.
Even so, “the net gradually closed in,” said Beccuau, with the escapee arrested by Romanian authorities nine months after his getaway.
Authorities then intensified the search for those who aided him in his escape from France to the eastern European country, arresting more than three dozen alleged accomplices.
Among those arrested are the six suspected attackers in the May 2024 assault found as far afield as Thailand, Morocco and Spain — one of whom died in an accident in November.
But a lawyer for one of the accused said there are “real doubts” about their involvement, with some “categorically denying the charges.”
As for Amra, his lawyer said, “no one can claim to know his role.”
“The fact that he benefited from the escape doesn’t necessarily mean he planned it or knew what methods would be used,” said Lucas Montagnier.
Macron, accompanied by Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau and Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin, visited several sites on Wednesday underlining the country’s push to clamp down on drug trafficking, including the headquarters of a new anti-organized crime taskforce, EMCO and the site of the May 2024 attack.
In late April, lawmakers approved a major new bill to combat drug-related crime, with some of France’s most dangerous drug traffickers facing being locked up in high-security units in prison in the coming months.
Amra was suspected of ordering hits from prison, including in the months leading up to his breakout, when a close associate issued a warning that “the Fly” was giving someone called “A” a week to pay up, or else.
A high-security prison in the northern Pas-de-Calais region is expected to house the 100 most dangerous drug traffickers beginning in late July.
With these measures, “the Republic is now putting all its resources” into ensuring that an escape like that of Mohamed Amra “never happens again,” Darmanin said on Tuesday on broadcaster France 2.
A plaque was also unveiled, honoring the two prison officers.
