Travel chaos after fire shuts down Heathrow Airport, leaving passengers stranded

Britain’s Heathrow Airport was closed for the day after a fire knocked out its power overnight, disrupting flights for hundreds of thousands of passengers at Europe’s busiest travel hub.

At least 1,300 flights to and from Heathrow were affected already, including several from US cities that were cancelled, flight tracking service FlightRadar 24 said.

Heathrow Airport says it doesn’t know when power will be restored and expects disruption to last for days after an electrical substation fire nearby.

The airport said in a statement it does not have “clarity on when power may be reliably restored.”

It said it expects “significant disruption over the coming days and passengers should not travel to the airport under any circumstances until the airport reopens.”

Heathrow earlier said the airport is not expected to reopen until Saturday.

While the cause of the fire that shut down Heathrow Airport is still unclear, analysts say the incident raises concerns about the UK’s ability to withstand attacks or natural disasters that damage critical infrastructure such as communications and power networks.

It’s particularly worrisome given recent comments by Britain’s security services that Russia is conducting a reckless campaign of sabotage across Europe, said Alan Mendoza, the executive director of the Henry Jackson Society, a London-based think tank focused on security and democracy in Europe.

“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,” Mendoza said.

“I mean, 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,” he added.

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