Heathrow fire LIVE: Airport ‘able to restart flights’ but passengers warned to follow advice from airlines

Thanks for joining us as events at Heathrow unfolded. 

Keep up-to-date on the latest news on the LBC homepage.

The Commander continued: “In addition to this, the investigation into the cause of the fire remains in its early stages. After initial assessment, we are not treating this incident as suspicious, although enquiries do remain ongoing.

“Due to the location of the substation and the impact this incident has had on critical national infrastructure, the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command are leading our enquiries into this matter.

“This is due to the specialist resources and capabilities within that command that can assist in progressing this investigation at pace and to help minimise disruption and identify the cause.

“Officers are working closely with a number of local partners, including the London Fire Brigade, National Grid and SSEN to build a picture of the circumstances surrounding the fire.

“Various specialist investigators continue to examine the scene and it is expected to take some time before full assessments can be completed.

“Officers will continue to work alongside colleagues on the investigation, but as we have stated above, at this stage, there remains no indication of any foul play.

“Anyone with information that could assist with the ongoing investigation can contact us by calling 0800 789 321.”

Commander Simon Messinger, who is leading the Met Police response to the incident, thanked locals for their response in the wake of the blaze.

“We would like to thank the public and those directly affected by the consequences of the fire for their patience and understanding while the important firefighting activity continues.

“In the early hours, officers also supported local authorities and others to evacuate nearby residents to ensure people were safe.

“Officers also worked at pace with teams from National Highways England to help limit disruption to the surrounding road networks.

“Local officers will continue to be deployed across Hillingdon, Hounslow and Ealing to provide the local community and partners with any assistance. Anyone with concerns over their safety should talk to a local officer. 

Restrictions put in place on overnight flights have now been temporarily lifted to help ease congestion at Heathrow, the Department for Transport has said.

The unprecedented move follows the closure of Europe's busiest  airport for much of today.

The first incoming flight has landed at Heathrow since the airport's closure during the early hours of this morning. 

The British Airways BAW35JG flight touched down  from Gatwick Airport just after 6pm following a string of diversions shortly after midnight.

The government's transport secretary has said that there are "no suggestions at the moment of foul play" where the substation fire is concerned.

She told the media it is "imperative the cause is identified as soon as possible" and highlighted the positives, noting that "none of the backup systems failed because they were designed to protect airport's key systems - which they did".

She confirmed she has already spoken to Heathrow CEO Mr Woldbye about lessons to be learned for future incidents, as she praised the "swift" emergency response.

Ellie, a British traveller who is set to get married in the next fortnight, has told LBC she currently remains stranded in New York after her flight was turned around over the Atlantic.

She describes the situation as "far from ideal" given her impending nuptials.

"I'm getting married in two weeks so we're supposed to do things for the wedding this weekend, so this is not ideal. "

The soon-to-be newlywed was "three hours into an overnight flight from JFK" to Heathrow when the captain informed them they would be turning back.

"The captain just said there had been an incident at Heathrow and London was shut down and we need to turn around and go back to JFK," she told LBC.

"I was flying with American Airlines and the air staff said they didn't really know anything else but the ground staff would be able to help us once we got there. 

However, Ellie said that despite the airline's obligation to provide hotel and food vouchers, she said the hotels on offer "were all about 20 miles away from the airport and all for a Thursday night booking - by which point, it was then already Friday morning."

"One of my colleagues has managed to get a flight back, she has been rebooked onto a flight with BA tonight.

"But I've had nothing through from American Arlines, so I would say my experience with them has not been great so far. 

"Very poor communication."

 Speaking to the media, Mr Woldbye said the airport "cannot guard ourselves against 100%" of unforeseen incidents. 

He explained that such a shutdown was a "difficult decision" that was not taken lightly, with the airport making the decision after it was faced with no other alternative.

"It was a very difficult decision... we could not safely operate the airport," he said. 

He admitted Heathrow is now "coming back fast", considering the extent of the outage.

He did, however, admit that "very few flights" would leave the London airport this evening. 

"Tomorrow morning we expect to be back on full operation," he said. 

He added: "Crisis management has worked the way it should." 

In the last few moments the chief executive of Heathrow Airport has spoken on today's outage, describing the incident as "as big as it gets" for the airline industry.

"This is unprecedented, it's never happened before," Thomas Woldbye said.

Equating the outage to that of "a mid-size city", he explained that Heathrow "lost a major part of our power, we lost one of our three substations," he explained. 

"This is as big as it gets," Woldbye added.

British Airways has told passengers aboard eight flights scheduled to depart from Heathrow Airport this evening to head to the airport for 17:00.

The airline confirmed the clearance of the eight long-haul flights, all of which are set to depart Heathrow this evening.

It added that it is "urgently contacting customers to let them know so they can make their way to the airport" from 17:00 GMT.

BA maintained passengers should stay away from the airport unless travelling aboard eight selected departures:

• BA055 to Johannesburg
• BA057 to Johannesburg
• BA011 to Singapore
• BA259 to Riyadh
• BA045 to Cape Town
• BA059 to Cape Town
• BA015 to Sydney via Singapore
• BA249 to Buenos Aires via Rio de Janeiro