Heathrow airport in chaos after fire alarm triggers Terminal 3 evacuation

Dozens of flights were delayed by a false alarm

Thousands of passengers at Britain’s busiest airport faced delays and disruption after a fire alarm was triggered at Terminal 3.

Travellers waiting to board flights were evacuated onto the apron, while those who had been in the check-in area were ordered to leave the building.

The emergency evacuation began at around 12.30pm. Passengers who had already passed through security were told to follow staff out of the gate area and on to the apron.

Thirty-five minutes after the alarm first sounded, Heathrow said: “Our teams have investigated and there is no fire in T3 despite the alarm. Passengers will be directed back into the terminal shortly.”

Some flights which had already boarded passengers were able to depart, but many more were delayed.

Philip Baum, editor of Aviation Security International, was waiting to board Qantas flight 10 to Dubai, which was due out at 1.30pm. He told The Independent: “From an incident management point of view it’s not impressive, to put it mildly. There is absolutely no information.

“Nobody other than the automated system has made a single announcement. People are milling around. If you stop to look at the flight boards you are told not to congregate.”

His flight eventually left over an hour late.

On Twitter, many passengers complained about the manner of the evacuation. Giuseppe Sollazzo tweeted: “‘Now you can turn back’. 30 minutes stuck. If this was a test, has definitely proved the point that #Heathrow T3 cannot be safely evacuated.”

Rob Platt echoed the response: “Fire alarm going off at #Heathrow and people are just been left to stand around with no idea where to go and airport staff have no idea #WTF.” Helena Dix reported: “Ushered towards emergency exit at snails pace. No staff seem to help or assist! Poor form!”. Neale Lewis said: “No one at airport taking any leadership into communicating where to go.”

But Dominic Rushe said: “Smoothly handled back inside. Peeps v calm and patient.”

The cause of the alarm remains unclear. Harry Bullivant, who had touched down from Salt Lake City, tweeted: “Waiting on DL50 plane for deboarding. Busses just arrived for terminal. Pilot said 'bomb scare’.”

Around 250 flights arrive and depart at the terminal each day.

Dozens of flights were delayed while order was restored. British Airways' departures to Las Vegas and Miami were over an hour behind schedule, while Virgin Atlantic’s flight to San Francisco was 90 minutes late.

A spokesperson for Virgin Atlantic said: “The terminal is now returning to normal. We’re anticipating some knock on delays to flights this afternoon and advise customers to make their way through security and wait for updated information on their departure. We’ll get this information to them as quickly as we can.”