Six fire fighters were taken to hospital
All flights have been suspended at Luton airport after a huge fire broke out in a multi-storey car park on Tuesday night.
Flights have been halted until 3pm after the blaze caused the car park to collapse and led to six firefighters being taken to hospital. They had reportedly suffered the effects of breathing in smoke. Another patient was treated at the scene.
Footage shared on social media shows huge flames engulfing the car park building and smoke billowing from the top floors, after the blaze broke out around 9pm Tuesday.
Bedfordshire Police have asked people not to travel to the area and the airport has also advised people to stay away.
The carpark building suffered a “significant structural collapse”. Around 1,200 vehicles were parked there and were damaged, the fire service said.
The airport said its priority was to support emergency services and the safety of passengers and staff, which is why flights had been suspended. The airport is currently closed.
In a statement at 3am on Wednesday, the airport said: “Emergency services continue to respond to a significant fire in Terminal car park 2, which has resulted in a partial structural collapse.”
The BBC reported that hundreds of people were left stranded in Luton, with no way of getting home with many saying their cars were in the car park.
Many were also scrambling with their luggage to Luton Airport’s train station in a bid to catch a train or coach to other airports in order to catch flights in the next few hours.
All the hotels in the area are fully booked and many passengers said the airlines have simply dumped them.
London Luton Airport is the UK’s fifth largest airport after Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester and Stansted, carrying more than 13 million passengers in 2022.
