Sorry everybody, we’re heading again to North Carolina: Moment passengers are informed their airplane is popping again – with Heathrow chaos to final till subsequent week as resorts hike costs by 1,850%
This is the dramatic moment an American Airlines pilot told passengers enroute to London that their plane would be performing a sudden u-turn – as the chaos at Heathrow looked set to continue into next week.
Flight AA730 left Charlotte in North Carolina at 7.30pm EDT last night (11.30pm GMT) and was due to land at Heathrow over seven hours later at 7am GMT (3am EDT).
But as the Boeing 777 made it to the eastern edge of Canada passengers were left shocked as the flight path map on their screens showed it had done a 180-degree turn.
The travellers were among 200,000 whose flights to or from Heathrow were axed or diverted after the airport shut all day following a fire at a nearby electrical substation.
Some 670 flights were affected by the unprecedented chaos at Europe’s busiest airport – with significant disruption expected to continue for days.
The blaze caused a power outage ‘equal to that of a big sized city’, Heathrow Chief Executive Thomas Woldbye said this evening, with a limited number of flights expected to set off again this evening.
In the clip, the pilot can be heard saying: ‘Some of you may have noticed on the TV screen we have made a 180-degree turn. We are heading back to Charlotte.
‘Let me tell you what is going on – there was a huge fire at the power substation at London Heathrow. The runways have light but there is no power at all in the terminals and they are not accepting flights into London Heathrow for the next 22 hours.’
An American Airlines pilot told passengers flying from Charlotte that they were heading back
The plane was en route to London Heathrow when the pilot said it would be returning to the US
The American Airlines flight had made it to the eastern edge of Canada but had to head back
He added: ‘Gatwick and Manchester were not accepting flights and but then they changed their minds and said they are accepting flights.
‘But we are so far away from those airports that by the time we get to Gatwick or Manchester there will be no room for our airplane because all the other airplanes are diverting to Manchester and Gatwick and that’s why we are returning to Charlotte.’
As passengers could be heard groaning at the news, the pilot added: ‘We will be on the ground in three hours and about 24 minutes.’
They ended up landing back at Charlotte at about 2.30am EDT this morning (6.30am GMT), just half an hour before they had originally been due to land at Heathrow today – meaning they had completed a 3,500-mile flight for nothing.
However, electricity now appears to have returned to the airport after an ‘interim solution’ was found by engineers at National Grid.
Reporters inside Terminal 4 this afternoon said lights in the main building have switched back on and lifts in the multi-storey car park are operational again.
And in a statement, the airport announced that it was now ‘safely able to begin some flights later today’ – with British Airways given clearance for eight long-haul journeys.
‘Our first flights will be repatriation flights and relocating aircraft,’ a spokesman said. ‘Please do not travel to the airport unless your airline has advised you to do so.
‘We will now work with the airlines on repatriating the passengers who were diverted to other airports in Europe. We hope to run a full operation tomorrow and will provide further information shortly.
However, travel journalist Simon Calder insisted tomorrow will be far from a ‘normal day’ at Heathrow and disruption will ‘stretch into next week’.
‘Ultimately it’s extremely damaging to the UK economically, reputationally and so much distress to people. All those people have been let down’, he said.
Those feeling most let down are likely to be those forced into hotels, with prices near to Heathrow surging by £946 a night.
One hotel by Heathrow was tonight charging a whopping £1,000 for a standard room for two people.
The price listed for the North Avenue Guest House on Booking.com is staggeringly higher than the £54 it would cost you to stay next Friday instead – a difference of £946. This also means a room tonight is 1,850 per cent of the price next Friday.
As Heathrow shut down sparking worldwide travel carnage:
Another passenger was travelling from Thailand to Heathrow but ended up in a Frankfurt hotel
A passenger was halfway to London on a eight-hour flight from Dubai which had to turn back
A transformer within the North Hyde electrical substation in West London caught fire last night
Passengers on other flights also posted videos on social media of their planes being diverted, including one who was travelling from Malaysia to Heathrow who ended up being redirected to Amsterdam.
Another was on a flight which U-turned back to Kuala Lumpur shortly after taking off.
A third was travelling from Thailand to Heathrow but ended up in a hotel in Frankfurt after being diverted en route.
And a fourth was halfway to London on a eight-hour flight from Dubai which had to turn back.
Passengers are now being warned to expect disruption for several days due to the Heathrow closure, and many planes and flight crews are now in the wrong location.
Online flight tracking service Flightradar24 said the closure would affect more than 1,350 flights to and from Heathrow today. This includes 679 scheduled to land and 678 due to take off from the airport.
It said 120 flights to the airport were in the air when the closure was announced.
Flights were diverted to Gatwick, Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris and Ireland’s Shannon Airport. Some were also turned around and returned to airports in Canada.
London Gatwick accepted seven diverted flights from locations including Singapore, Johannesburg, Lagos, Cape Town and Doha which were originally destined for Heathrow.
Smoke continues to billow from the North Hyde electrical substation in West London today
Shannon Airport in Co Clare accepted six diversions from Toronto, Atlanta, Bridgetown Barbados, Boston, Orlando and Newark.
The Metropolitan Police said there is ‘currently no indication of foul play’ relating to the fire, but ‘we retain an open mind at this time’.
The force said its Counter Terrorism Command would lead inquiries given the impact of the fire ‘on critical national infrastructure’.
Thousands of homes have been left without power and more than 100 people were evacuated after a transformer within the North Hyde electrical substation caught fire in West London.
The airport, which is supplied by the substation, said it was among those affected by the power outage.
Heathrow is the UK’s largest airport, with more than 83.9 million passengers travelling through its terminals in 2024.
An experienced electrical engineer today blamed the catastrophic failure of an ‘oil-filled transformer’ for the devastating fire.
Tom Watters, who has worked on critical infrastructure around the world, told MailOnline the crucial substation powering Heathrow and west London contains ‘very old’ equipment and blamed a ‘lack of investment’ for the crisis.
Parked planes and an empty runway at London Heathrow Terminal 5 today after it was closed
Passengers are facing travel chaos today after Heathrow Airport had to close due to a fire
Hilton London Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 (pictured) – where prices tonight more than three times the cost for next week
Firefighters wearing masks at the scene of the major blaze in West London this morning
An almost empty Arrivals Hall at Heathrow Terminal 4 in London this morning after its closure
A screen at Hatton Cross Underground station today tells passengers that Heathrow is closed
The substation fire in Hayes involved 25,000 litres of cooling oil igniting, the London Fire Brigade (LFB) has said.
MailOnline can also reveal that a report for London Mayor Sadiq Khan in 2022 identified major problems with the electricity supply system in the Heathrow area.
It warned that the North Hyde substation, which exploded into flames last night, has been running at 106.2 per cent of capacity.
Electrical engineer Mr Watters, director of Sanguine Impact Investments, told MailOnline: ‘An oil filled transformer has obviously failed and caused the massive fire.
‘This looks like a very old transformer and it’s surprising that such an old piece of critical equipment was still in service. I assume a lack of investment is the reason.
‘The design of the substation while being ok is also very old style. Modern substations are normally enclosed using gas as the insulation’.
Counter terrorism police are now leading the probe into the fire amid fears it could be a Russian sabotage attack.
Western officials have accused Russia and its proxies of staging dozens of attacks and other incidents across Europe since the invasion of Ukraine three years ago.
They allege that the disruption campaign is an extension of President Putin’s war, intended to sow division in European societies and undermine support for Ukraine – although the Kremlin has denied carrying out sabotage efforts against the West.
Earlier this week, Putin had agreed to a limited ceasefire that stops Russia targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure after a phone call with US President Donald Trump.
Now, experts are analysing whether Russia could be linked to the UK substation fire, which is affecting 679 flights scheduled to land and 678 departures from Heathrow.
Scotland Yard’s Counter Terrorism Command is leading the investigation given the need to quickly establish whether sabotage was involved and the security questions relating to how one fire took down a major piece of infrastructure. It comes as:
