First aircraft lands at heathrow after 18-hour delay caused by power disruption

At least 1,350 flights between Heathrow and different locations sustained disruption during the air traffic control incident while further delays for both rebookings and schedule modifications are expected in the coming days.

Edited By: Aprajita Kumari

Last Updated : 22 March 2025, 08:55 AM IST

London heathrow back in operation (x/@MyNews13)

The electrical substation fire triggered Heathrow Airport's total power outage thus causing Flight 201 from British Airways to land at Heathrow Airport on Friday evening eighteen hours after the initial failure. Services at the airport restarted during dusk by removing the lifts to permit operations following power failure disruptions which affected hundreds of thousands of global passengers.

Electric substation situated near Heathrow Airport

The authorities remain unable to establish the fire's origins and concluded that the incident was no suspicious act. The west London area experienced both a huge blast and a fireball along with smoke plumes which consumed the electric substation situated near Heathrow Airport.When the closure announcement came aircraft tracking services registered approximately 120 active flights which then either redirected to return to their departure points or diverted to land at Gatwick Airport, Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris or Shannon Airport in Ireland. The lack of flights between Heathrow and other destinations reached 1350 ATA leading to potential flight delays extending across multiple days to manage passenger re-bookings and changes by carriers.

Trans-Atlantic routes

Heathrow Airport achieved its highest January passenger numbers in history this year when it served 6.3 million passengers marking an increase of greater than 5 percent from last year. The shutdown from Friday did not reach the same level of severity as the 2010 Eyjafjallajokull eruption which spread Icelandic ash clouds across trans-Atlantic routes for a prolonged period.

Counterterrorism detectives Heathrow substation fire

Counterterrorism detectives are in charge of probing the electrical substation fire near Heathrow because the Metropolitan Police emphasizes their speed in determining causes and infrastructure effects.The emergency backup system at Heathrow operated correctly but lacked enough capacity to maintain airport operations which led to a complete closure during the day. The airport authorities stated that passengers should avoid traveling to the airport for any reason because the airport remains closed indefinitely. Analysis surfaced that Britain lacked emergency preparedness for disasters or attacks since one fire at Heathrow shut down the busiest airport in Europe for seven catastrophic hours.