All flights to and from London's Luton Airport have been suspended this morning after a fire broke out at the airport’s car park.
The 08.20 Ryanair flight from Dublin to Luton was cancelled this morning, as was the 07.55 from Luton to Dublin.
Luton Airport has said flights will resume at 3pm this afternoon and access to the airport will be restricted until then.
The blaze
Emergency services were called out yesterday evening and at 9.38pm declared it a “major incident”.
Flames could be seen tearing through cars parked on an upper floor of Terminal Car Park 2 in videos posted on social media on Tuesday night.
One witness said, "You could hear cars exploding" and another said the speed at which spread across the car park was "incredible".
"There were a couple of fire engines with a car ablaze on the upper floor of the car park at just after 9pm," Russell Taylor said.
"A few minutes later most of the upper floor was alight, car alarms were going off with loud explosions from cars going up in flames.
"The speed in which the fire took hold was incredible."
Efforts are still ongoing to extinguish a serious fire at Luton Airport. We are continuing to protect surrounding airport infrastructure, vehicles and the Luton DART. For anyone whose travel plans may be affected, please refer to the advice being provided by London Luton Airport. pic.twitter.com/tNFo4hvRdX
— Beds Fire and Rescue (@BedsFire) October 11, 2023
At one point, there were 15 fire engines at the airport and 100 firefighters were tackling the blaze.
Four firefighters and an airport member of staff have been hospitalised and the airport said the multi storey car park has suffered a "significant structural collapse".
Main image: Burnt out car park at Luton. Picture by: Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue
