PDX flights to London cancelled after fire causes power outage at Heathrow Airport
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) -- Flights to and from London’s Heathrow Airport were cancelled Friday after a fire at a nearby substation knocked out power to Europe’s busiest airport. This disrupted travel plans for hundreds of thousands of people around the world, including those flying out of Portland International Airport.
As of 8:05 a.m., both the arrival from and departure to Heathrow Airport have been cancelled, according to the PDX flight tracker.
Authorities said the fire broke out about 2 miles away from the airport, causing a “significant power outage," which forced officials to shut the airport until 11:59 p.m. on Friday “to maintain the safety of our passengers and colleagues.”
The blaze has been contained but firefighters will remain at the scene throughout Friday, according to the London Fire Brigade.
National Grid, which maintains energy infrastructure in Britain, said that the blaze damaged equipment at the substation and crews are working to restore power supplies as quickly as possible. Power was restored to the local community by early afternoon.
While the cause of the fire is still under investigation, officials said that there was “no suggestion” of foul play. But the Metropolitan Police said that counterterrorism detectives were leading the investigation into its cause because of the fire's impact on critical national infrastructure.
The disruption impacted travel plans of around 200,000 people who were expected to travel through Heathrow on Friday. Heathrow advised passengers not to travel to the airport and to contact their airlines to rebook flights.
With all takeoffs and landings cancelled, the first impact was on dozens of long-haul flights from North America and Asia that were in the air when the airport was shut down. Some were forced to turn around, while others were diverted to airports around the U.K. and Europe.
Further, about 4,000 tons of cargo have also been stranded by the closure, according to Anita Mendiratta, an aviation consultant.
The disruptions are expected to last for days as airlines move stranded aircraft and flight crews back into position and work to accommodate passengers whose flights were cancelled.
Mendiratta estimated that it would take two to four days to clear all the backlogs.
“This is an extreme situation where the entire aviation ecosystem is impacted,” she said.
“There will be two things that will be happening as a priority No. 1. First is airport operations and understanding, from an electrical system point of view, what has been impacted, if anything,” she added. “Did anything short out, for instance? What needs to be reactivated? And then how do you literally turn the airport back on again? Passenger and cargo."
In addition, she noted, “there's the issue of actually managing the human component of it. You have passengers that are impacted, crew are impacted and operations, so being able to remobilize everything.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.