Fire shuts down London’s Heathrow Airport, disrupting travel for hundreds of thousands

By BRIAN MELLEY, DANICA KIRKA and JILL LAWLESS
Associated Press

A large fire near London’s Heathrow Airport knocked out power to Europe’s busiest flight hub and forced it to shut all day. That is disrupting global travel for hundreds of thousands of passengers Friday.

Heathrow said it didn’t know when power would be restored — raising the possibility that the shutdown would last longer than just the day, as previously expected. Flight tracking service FlightRadar 24 said that at least 1,350 flights to and from Heathrow were affected, and the impact was likely to last several days as passengers try to reschedule their travel and airlines work to get planes and crew to the right places.

Authorities do not know what caused the fire but so far have found no evidence it was suspicious.