Heathrow Airport evacuated: what happened at Terminal 2 today, were flights affected by incident, is it closed

Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 2 has now reopened after passengers were evacuated this morning.

Videos of travellers leaving the scene have since went viral on social media.

Heathrow has confirmed the incident has ended has apologised for “any inconvenience caused”.

Whilst Transport for London (TfL) have said that the station for Terminals 2 and 3 have also reopened.

Passengers are expecting to experience knock-on delays as the terminal ground to a halt.

Here’s everything you need to know about what happened at Heathrow Airport.

What happened at Heathrow Airport Terminal 2?

Passengers were evacuated this morning from Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 2 over a security alert.

The incident occured after a bag was left unattended in the terminal.

The Metropolitan Police were called at 10.47am to inspect the suspicious item, whilst all passengers in the terminal had to leave for their own safety.

As a precaution the TfL stations at Heathrow Terminal 2 and 3 were closed.

The airport terminal was reopened once the item was deemed not to pose a threat.

Why were passengers evacuated?

Pictures and video on social media showed large crowds of people standing around outside the airport, unsure of what was going on.

Photos also show several police vehicles parked up outside the terminal.

Holidaymakers and travellers took to social media to share the evacuation.

One Twitter user shared a picture of the deserted terminal car park, tweeting: “#heathrowairport looks like a bomb scare at Heathrow terminal 2. Everyone has been evacuated”

Whilst another user showed a picture of the aftermath tweeting: “Heathrow T2 evacuated, lots of armed police and talk of a suspicious package...and there was me worried I should be there 3 hours before.”

Travellers were met with additional queues to get back into the terminal after the evacuation had ended.

One Twitter user @HRHijazi showed a video of the terminal reopening, captioning it “The re-opening rush”.

What has Heathrow Airport said?

Heathrow have given an update on the incident, which occured in terminal 2.

Their spokesperson said: “Our teams responded to a potential suspect item in Terminal 2 earlier today which has now been deemed not suspicious by the police. As a precaution, passengers were briefly evacuated while the authorities conducted the appropriate checks. We apologise to our passengers for any inconvenience caused.”

What has the police said?

Hillingdon Police have taken to Twitter to give an update on the situation.

They said: “We were called at 10:47hrs to reports of an unattended bag at Terminal 2 of Heathrow Airport. The area was evacuated as a precaution. The item was deemed not to be suspicious and the incident has been stood down. Thanks for your patience! The airport terminal has now fully reopened.”

Are flights affected?

The closure and evacuation of Terminal 2 is expected to cause knock-on delays to today’s departures.

However, according to Heathrow’s departures tracker on their website, all flights are scheduled to go ahead as planned.

There was additional disruption to flights today after German airline Lufthansa cancelled dozens of services to the UK due to a pilots’ strike.

All of Lufthansa’s 34 services between London Heathrow, Frankfurt and Munich have been grounded, with an estimated 7,000 passengers affected.

Has the airport reopened?

The airport terminal has since reopened after the incident.

TFL has also confirmed that stations for Heathrow’s Terminals 2 and 3 have now also reopened.