A fire near Heathrow Airport has shut down operations until at least on midnight 21 March 2025 due to power outages, causing disruption to tens of thousands of air passengers, which the authorities say is likely to continue for days.
“To maintain the safety of our passengers and colleagues, Heathrow will be closed until 23h59 on 21 March,” the airport said in a statement on social media platform X. With no flights arriving or departing, authorities told CNN passengers should “not travel to the airport under any circumstances until the airport reopens,” adding that they “do not have clarity on when power may be reliable restored.”
Our teams have worked tirelessly since the incident to ensure a speedy recovery. We’re now safely able to restart flights, prioritising repatriation and relocation of aircraft. Please do not travel to the airport unless your airline has advised you to do so. (1/2) pic.twitter.com/fhUGiXCh6B
— Heathrow Airport (@HeathrowAirport) March 21, 2025
Fire under control but disruption expected to increase
The blaze broke out at around 11pm at an electrical substation in Hayes, less than five km from Heathrow in west London, the London Fire Brigade said. A team of 70 firefighters brought the situation under control by 8 am the next day. However, the brigade’s assistant commissioner, Pat Goulbourne, echoed the airport’s plea for people to stay away, warning that “As we head into the morning, disruption is expected to increase, and we urge people to avoid the area wherever possible.”
🚨Heathrow Airport Fire🚨
— Taymur Malik (@Taymur959) March 21, 2025
Heathrow Airport shuts down until midnight due to a massive fire at a nearby power substation! Over 1,350 flights grounded, 16K+ people without power. #Heathrow pic.twitter.com/oxcErJmgnc
No cause for the inferno, images of which show flames and dark billowing smoke reaching high into the sky, has yet been confirmed. Fire services said 150 people had been evacuated from the area, while utility supplier Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks said over 16,000 homes had lost power. UK Energy Secretary Ed Miliband put the number of blackouts at 100,000 in total, with only 4,000 left to restore, which the UK National Grid working on “at speed.”
Over a quarter of million journeys could be disrupted
Over 120 planes were in the air on their way to Heathrow when the shut down occurred, FlightRadar24 data shows. The flight tracker also estimated on Bluesky that the “total closure of London-Heathrow will affect at least 1,351 flights to/from LHR,” pointing out “That doesn’t include any flights that might be canceled or delayed due to aircraft being out of position.”
London-Heathrow will be closed for ALL of Friday due to a “significant power outage” caused by a fire in an electrical substation.
— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) March 21, 2025
There are currently 120 aircraft in the air that will be diverting to alternate airports or returning to their origins. https://t.co/TEHf2kJO23 pic.twitter.com/Lot0lsJLz8
One of the world’s top five busiest airports, Heathrow handles around 90 million passengers a year, an average of quarter of a million passengers each day. Analysts at Cirium put the number of flyers affected by the Hayes fire “upwards of 145,000” while the Guardian calculated up it could be as many as 291,000, if all the flights were full –the airport usually functions at 99% capacity.
While According to the online flight tracking service FlightRadar24, 120 flights to Heathrow were in the air when the closure was announced.
