This is the moment a car goes up in flames at London Luton Airport, before the huge inferno that caused a car park to collapse, cancelling all flights and leaving five people in hospital.
Firefighters spent 12 hours battling blaze at £20million Terminal Car Park Two. Luton Airport car park fire LIVE. * Have you been affected by the chaos?The Luton Airport car park collapse has sparked travel chaos across trains, planes and automobiles today, with thousands of passengers stranded and forced to sleep on the floor following a huge inferno.
Others chose to stay at the airport and make a temporary bed for themselves on the floor, including a Polish family who were visiting London on holiday.Frustrated passengers sleep on the floor after facing hours of delays at Luton airport Mr Szmit, speaking from the terminal building where he is waiting with his wife and their two sons aged seven and 15, said: 'We were on holiday for five days to visit London - British Museum, Trafalgar Square.
The website, which had a wait time of eight minutes just to enter it this morning amid heightened demand, said the area is just a four-minute walk to the terminal, and is the closest car park to the terminal entrance. Last night the Luton resident, who lives less than a mile from the airport, heard bangs and saw flames, leading him to believe a plane had crashed.
Mr Gaitely, the director of a planting machinery company, said he had been on his way to celebrate a friend's 70th birthday. The blaze, which was finally controlled and extinguished by 100 firefighters just before 9am, was started when a diesel car suffered an electrical fault or leaking fuel line, investigators believe. MailOnline understands the vehicle was a Range Rover.
He added that the building's open sides meant the fire will have spread 'horizontally' before it went up through the structure. The inferno burned so hot that the car park building is unsalvageable and will eventually be demolished, sources claimed. Up to 50,000 passengers are suffering disruption at the airport, which is not due to reopen until 3pm this afternoon – and more than 140 flights have been cancelled.
Another officer, who would not be named, added that the loud bangs audible in videos circulated via social media would have been fuel tanks, tyres, and EV tanks. Liz Blackmore, 57, had parked her £48,000 Mercedes on the top floor of the car park before heading off on holiday to Portugal. 'Also we didn't know whether to go to Luton and pick up car - we didn't know what to do - no one told us - we didn't go because we'd seen the car park had collapsed so we didn't bother going.
What are you rights if your flight is cancelled? Travel expert NICKY KELVIN reveals what airlines must provide For an expert travel hack, I would recommend looking at Flight Radar 24 which allows users to track the exact aircraft that will be flying your route. You don't have to travel with the same airline. The issue with this situation is that all airlines have been affected by these issues so trying to fly with different airlines may also not be possible.Advertisement Mr Wiercinski told MailOnline: 'I saw the fire as we were landing and I could see it was coming from the car park where I had my car.'It was in the 'meet and greet' section on the second floor and was away from the section where the fire broke out.
They had parked their £32,000 VW Tiguan in Car Prk 2 which they fear has been destroyed in the blaze. Access to the Airport from the Luton Direct Air-Rail Transit has been closed, leaving passengers stuck at Luton Airport Parkway station. 'When we got here, we found out Luton is burning and everything is closed, and we were supposed to have our flight at 7:50 today but it was cancelled. We found another ticket to Poland from another city and then we have to take a coach to the city we live in.'
The Blackmore family's Mercedes was less than a year old and was parked on the top floor of the carpark which went up in flamesGregorz Szmit, 46, said their flight to Gdansk should have departed at 9.50pm on Tuesday and is now scheduled to leave at 7.30pm on Wednesday. A check on Luton Airport's website at about 9am today found there was no availability for parking on any of its official sites before Friday, October 27 - with a space at the Terminal 1 Car Park available for £138 for the week from that date.
Andrew Hopkinson, chief fire officer for Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue Service, said at around 10am this morning that the fire at Luton Airport has been 'stood down from a major incident'. He added: 'There is a substantial number that are not damaged and our focus as well is can we remove those vehicles safely without causing any danger to the responders?'How the charred car park appears this morning from the other side of London Luton Airport
Liam Smith, crew commander at Leighton Buzzard fire station, told the BBC there were 'lots of electric vehicles potentially involved quite early on', though the fire started in a diesel car. READ MORE: Is YOUR flight affected by the London Luton car park fire? What you need to know after huge inferno that caused £20m structure to collapse Advertisement Last night, vehicle alarms and loud explosions were heard as cars were burned through one by one, with a witness describing the speed in which the blaze tore through the newly-built car park's upper floor as 'incredible'.
'Passengers are advised not to travel to the airport at this time, as access remains severely restricted.' In addition, 11 further arrivals early this morning were diverted to other UK airports including London Stansted, Manchester, Liverpool, Cardiff and Bristol.
Speaking to reporters at the scene this morning, he said: 'Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue Service's fire control received an initial 999 call at 8.47pm yesterday evening, reporting a car on fire on the third floor of the Terminal car park two behind me here at London Luton Airport. 'At its peak we had 15 fire appliances, over 100 firefighters and a number of specialist resources including the one you will see over my right-hand shoulder, with resources provided by neighbouring fire and rescue services.'
This frame grab from handout video footage taken and released by the Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue Service via AFPTV on October 11, 2023 shows a parking structure on fire at London's Luton AirportCars can be seen badly damaged in the parking lot at Luton Airport following last night's blazeFlames roar at Terminal Car Park 2 at Luton Airport following the huge blaze on Tuesday night
Russell Taylor, 41, an account director from Kinross in Scotland, saw the flames after flying in to Luton Airport from Edinburgh. The inferno will no doubt cause worry for British holidaymakers who left their vehicles at the airport before jetting off overseasCars on the top deck of the multi-storey have been left completely burnt out by the huge fire
Crews from Bedfordshire and neighbouring counties have been urgently battling the blaze, they said, 'to prevent it from spreading to adjacent buildings and vehicles on air side of the airport.' The fire raged into the early hours of Wednesday, with Beds Fire service sharing an update just after midnight on Tuesday stating that they were first alerted by calls at 8.47pm on Tuesday.
He said: 'There were a couple of fire engines with a car ablaze on the upper floor of the car park at just after 9pm.
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