Key events
Former GCHQ chief ‘surprised’ at length of closure
David Omand, the former head of the Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ), said he was surprised at the length of the airport’s closure.
He told the BBC:
Given the importance of Heathrow I am surprised that the whole airport had to be shut for a day.
I mean, you could understand disruption whilst you change over to alternate systems and so on, but such a complete failure over the period of a day – and who knows the disruption may last longer – is a national embarrassment. It shouldn’t have happened.
London residents will be disturbed by more aircraft noise at night than normally permitted in the coming days after the Department for Transport lifted restrictions on night flights to ease the backlog.
Yesterday, Downing Street said there were “questions to answer” after a fire at an electrical substation closed down the airport, stopping more than 1,350 flights and disrupting the journeys of hundreds of thousands of passengers.
Counter-terrorism police were leading the investigation into the “unprecedented” incident that left Britain’s biggest airport unable to function as engineers tried to restore power, but said there was “no indication of foul play”.
Two people familiar with the investigation said officials did not believe the fire was the result of any criminal activity or a hostile state act and was more likely to be accidental. Police confirmed on Friday evening that the fire was not thought to be suspicious.
Flights begin landing at Heathrow after day of travel chaos
Hello and welcome back to our live coverage of the ongoing travel chaos caused by the closure of Heathrow airport in London yesterday.
On Saturday morning, flights began landing as the airport aimed to return to normal operation after shutting down over a loss of power.
Restrictions on overnight flights were temporarily lifted to help ease congestion, the Department of Transport said, and the airport said passengers should come to Heathrow on Saturday as they normally would.
British Airways, which has a major presence at Heathrow, said it expected to operate around 85% of its scheduled flights at the airport on Saturday. The airline would usually expect to run nearly 600 departures and arrivals on a Saturday but it is understood cancellations will be made, where possible, to high-frequency routes.
According to flight tracking website FlightRadar24, British Airways (BA) flight BA56 from Johannesburg, South Africa was the first regular passenger flight to land at Heathrow since Thursday evening, touching down at 4.37am on Saturday.
We’ll bring you the latest updates throughout the day as we get them.
