London’s Heathrow Airport — one of the busiest airports in the world — was closed Friday after a fire at a nearby electrical substation caused a power outage. An estimated 200,000 travelers could be affected.
The airport said the fire at an electrical substation supplying the airport had caused a “significant power outage.”
“To maintain the safety of our passengers and colleagues, Heathrow will be closed until (11:59 p.m. Friday local time),” the airport said, adding that it expected “significant disruption over the coming days and passengers should not travel to the airport under any circumstances until the airport reopens.”
London’s Metropolitan Police said there was “currently no indication of foul play,” but that counterterrorism police would be leading the investigation into the substation fire that shut down Britain’s most important airport.
“Given the location of the substation and the impact this incident has had on critical national infrastructure, the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command is now leading enquiries. This is due to the specialist resources and capabilities within that command that can assist in progressing this investigation at pace to minimize disruption and identify the cause,” the police said in a statement.
Tracking services showed flights being diverted to London’s Gatwick Airport, Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris and Ireland’s Shannon Airport. British Airways, whose main hub is Heathrow, said the closure would have a significant impact on its operations and customers, adding that it was working as quickly as possible to update travelers on their options for the “next 24 hours and beyond.”
The FlightRadar24 live tracking website showed at least 1,350 flights into and out of Heathrow were affected. According to the online service, the top route to and from Heathrow is the connection with New York’s JFK International Airport, with 146 flights every week.
“I saw the time on the screen started to increase,” passenger Tori Dunzello, who had been on a flight to the U.K. to attend her father’s funeral, told CBS News partner network BBC News. “I turned on my world map, and I started seeing a big U-turn, and I turned around and said to my husband: ‘I think we’re turning around.'”
Dunzello said her flight was diverted to Canada, and she expected it to refuel and return to New York.
The impact of the Heathrow power outage was likely to last several days, leaving thousands passengers forced to find alternate travel plans.
“We’re talking about several days’ worth of disruption to get the planes recovered and start using them again to move planned and disrupted passengers,” Aviation consultant John Strickland told The Associated Press, comparing the outage to “a contained version of 9/11 or, to an extent, the Icelandic volcanic eruption” in 2010 that shutdown European airspace.
“Heathrow being such a busy airport and full, there’s no kind of wriggle room for getting out of these kind of things,” Strickland told the AP.
Britain’s National Rail service canceled services to and from Heathrow for the day, though some passengers could still be seen attempting to enter the airport on foot on Friday. They were turned away by police.
Firefighters douse the remainder of a fire that broke out at a substation supplying power to Heathrow Airport in Hayes, west London on March 21, 2025. BENJAMIN CREMEL/AFP via Getty Images
The London Fire Brigade said 10 fire engines and around 70 firefighters were sent to tackle the blaze at a substation near the airport in the west London town of Hayes. It started late Thursday night, and by about 8 a.m. local time, the brigade said it was “under control, but we will remain on scene throughout the day.”
The fire was “producing a significant amount of smoke. Please keep your windows and doors closed and avoid the area where possible,” the brigade urged people in the area.
The power outage affected “a large number of homes and local businesses, and we are working closely with our partners to minimise disruption,” Assistant Commissioner Pat Goulbourne said in a statement, adding that firefighters had led 29 people to safety from nearby properties, and around 150 people were evacuated.
Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks said in a post on X that the power outage affected more than 16,300 homes.
Authorities said it wasn’t clear what had sparked the blaze at the substation, but U.K. Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Ed Miliband told LBC Radio there was no immediate suggestion of foul play. Local residents reported hearing explosions.
“I was about 100 yards from the explosion,” local resident Vaneca Sinclair told the BBC. She said she had been getting ready for bed in her home at about 11:30 p.m. Thursday evening (7:30 p.m. Eastern) when “suddenly there was this huge bang and the house just shook.”
“When the first explosion went off… I literally just ran out of the house,” another local resident, Savita Kapur, told the BBC. She said she got her elderly mother in her car to drive her to her sister’s house.
“When I was driving up my road the second explosion went off and the whole ground shook,” Kapur said.
“There’s obviously been a catastrophic fire at this substation,” Miliband told the BBC, and “it appears to have knocked out a back-up generator as well as a substation itself.”
“We will have to look hard at the causes, and also the protection and the resilience that is in place for major, major institutions like Heathrow,” he said.
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a statement Friday that he “know(s) the situation in Heathrow is causing distress and disruption, especially for those traveling or without power in their homes. I’m receiving regular updates and I’m in close contact with partners on the ground,” Starmer said. “Thanks to our emergency workers for keeping people safe.”
The latest numbers from travel data provider OAG Aviation show Heathrow is the fifth busiest airport in the world. Earlier this year, it reported its busiest January on record, serving over 6.3 million passengers and averaging over 200,000 passengers a day. More than 1.2 million of those passengers travelled between the U.K. and the U.S.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Kierra FrazierKierra Frazier is a news editor for CBS News & Stations.
