Unprecedented fire closes Heathrow Airport which is ‘a contained version of 9/11’

Heathrow Airport will be closed all day following an “unusual and unprecedented” fire as a nearby substation.

Thousands of people have had their flights cancelled and there is power cuts in the surrounding areas.

Some 290,000 passengers are affected and more than 1,300 flights to Heathrow Airport is disrupted on Friday due to the fire at the electrical substation.

Thousands of homes have also been affected with power cuts and the substation also provided power to Heathrow Airport.

Aviation consultant John Strickland said the closure of Heathrow for an entire day is “a massive dislocation to have to recover from”.

We are already in a hybrid war.
Putin is paying criminals to conduct acts of sabotage and terror here.
Stopping Heathrow with one well aimed act.

And he won't even get five years jail for it. pic.twitter.com/ptdjTxSHyj

— tern (@1goodtern) March 21, 2025

He added: “Once an aircraft is in the wrong place with the crew, if you’re away from home you don’t have another crew to suddenly bring the plane and the passengers back.

“You’ve got to wait until that crew has taken its rest, which is always required after a duty period.

“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.”

He likened the disruption to what happened after the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, when flights were grounded across the US.

He said: “It’s a contained version of 9/11”.

A Heathrow spokesperson said: “Heathrow is experiencing a significant power outage across the airport due to a large fire at a nearby electrical substation. Whilst fire crews are responding to the incident, we do not have clarity on when power may be reliably restored.

“To maintain the safety of our passengers and colleagues, we have no choice but to close Heathrow until 23h59 on 21 March 2025. We expect significant disruption over the coming days and passengers should not travel to the airport under any circumstances until the airport reopens.

“We will provide an update when more information on the resumption of operations is available. We know this will be disappointing for passengers and we want to reassure that we are working as hard as possible to resolve the situation.”