Heathrow Airport fire: Is the airport closed? Where are flights diverted to?

As well as seeing 16,300 homes in the area lose power, the outage also means the airport will be shut all day.

Flights have been unable to land and there and online tracking services showed flights being diverted to Gatwick, Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris and Ireland’s Shannon Airport, and even to airports in the United States and Canada.

Gatwick Airport said it had taken seven diverted flights from locations including Singapore, Johannesburg, Lagos, Cape Town and Doha which were originally destined for Heathrow.

“We are aware of the situation at Heathrow Airport today and we are supporting by accepting diverted flights as required,” an airport spokesperson said. “Flights are operating from London Gatwick as normal today.”

Online flight tracker FlightRadar24 highlighted how busy American skies were in the night, as Heathrow-bound flights were sent back to their airport of origin.

“A picture you would expect to see during the early afternoon above the US, not in the middle of the night,” it said. “A very unusual situation due to the Heathrow closure.”