Hayes fire leads to worldwide travel chaos

A fire at a transformer in Hayes went up in flames on Thursday evening - leading to the total closure of Heathrow Airport.

Transcript

00:00A really very extraordinary and genuinely unprecedented story. A fire here at a substation

00:09has caused worldwide chaos. All flights were cancelled on Friday at Heathrow Airport. This

00:17is estimated to cause the aviation industry millions. Unimaginable amounts of people have

00:24been left stranded. Flights all across the world have been sent back to their destinations

00:31or diverted which has of course caused further disruption elsewhere. We understand the fire

00:39began on Thursday evening and blazed throughout the early hours of Friday morning. Fortunately

00:47the London Ambulance Service has confirmed there have been no casualties or anyone treated

00:54for injuries at this particular scene. Witnesses to the fire have described some of the chaos

01:01locally during night. Many locals were of course evacuated from the area. A local resident

01:08described a dramatic explosion and a subsequent total blackout. Standing here now there is

01:15a pretty toxic smell and I've noticed quite a few of the local residents are wearing masks

01:22presumably because of concern. We've heard from Ed Miliband who is of course the Energy

01:29Secretary who has described the event as unprecedented. The big question remains how did this fire

01:37manage to cause such catastrophic disruption?