Gatwick diversion.
 

My stepson returning from Amsterdam to Heathrow this evening was diverted to Gatwick landing at 2000LT. Since then he's been held on the aircraft whilst presumably they negotiate another slot? Reason for the diversion was said to be "fire alarms at Heathrow"!
Any ppruner at LGW or LHR know anything more?
with fraternal greetings,
ambi:ok:

LHR Tower evacuation 16 A/C diverted to LGW

A fire alarm was set off at Heathrow tower which meant it had to be evacuated. Multiple inbounds diverted to Gatwick, Stansted, Luton and Birmingham.

Normal service was resumed roughly 30-40 minutes after the initial evacuation.

Gatwick diversion
 

LGWWelsh & scuzi,
Many thanks for the update.
ambi:ok:

Diversions included Singapore A380.
Mind the bridge.

oh guys what a f@ck up......this is costing us millions if it was a false alarm which I'd bet my late granny on.

LHR is old, old, and except for terminal five, really old, and outdated.
What else do you expect?:rolleyes:

It was a false alarm but it's better to be safe than sorry! If there was a confirmed fire in the tower look at the options for evacuation, one external lift, one internal lift and stairs.

Terminal five is not the only new building, the tower isn't that old.

Having just seen this news,i can fully understand the need to divert a/c elsewhere,(this supposedly is done by swanwick?),but can anyone enlighten me as to how ATC deal with the many a/c on the ground either taxying/holding for take-off etc,when something like this happens?? Do some volunteers stay behind??,or is it a n evacuation en masse and if so how do all the flight crews on these a/c get any relevant information??

411A.
You are showing YOUR age and ignorance. The tower is virtually brand new:}

Well if the alarm was in the tower that is really new 411a

Ian

Heathrow control closed completely.

It was wonderfully quiet! The crews of the aircraft taxying out held their last assigned positions and used their initiative. Many aircraft shut down their engines to conserve fuel and keep their options open as the length of the delay was unknown.

Hth.

the tower is indeed new! about 3 or 4 years. not old at all!

The a380 was impressive to see, lots of ops cars making sure it didnt hit anything, appartently! although i bet there camera's were out too!

Well done to the lgw boys and girls who kept us laughing, even though we were number 18 to push at one point!

Skyedog

Thanks for the info,.....However does that mean that at the time of the alarm being sounded,all the relevant controllers on each LHR frequency send out a message,or is it all automated to some degree??

You only have to look at the new tower to see why you would want to evacuate PDQ if there was a fire alarm, not many ways out and once a fire got hold in the lower "admin" building it would cut off an escape from the upper tower, not nice.

CHINOOKER, there is a prescribed message which is read out on each frequency telling a/c what to do.

it was follow my leader in the sky above the south east. thay all diverted to EGKK, the delay there went instantly from 5 to 35 minutes.
ive not been on the receiving end of so many pans due fuel shortage in a long time.
however, over the last couple of hours they all slowly got airborne from gatwick to head back to heathrow.... its a shame with all its new technology the A380 that was on a BIGGIN departure couldnt find BIG in the FMS and went steaming past it.
a very, very busy sunday afternoon down in sunny swanwick.

No automation. The controller on the departure runway (27R) simply said words to the effect of, "All aircraft standby, there is a fire alarm sounding in the tower." He then came back to say that all departures were suspended and that the tower was being evacuated. He left us with the words "Heathrow service now closed" (or similar).

The silence was bliss & we had a lovely cuppa after shutting the engines down etc.

About 25 mins later the world came alive again - we received info on the tower freq. & from our company freq. that the tower would be up & running again in about 10 mins (they had to switch all their kit on again) which gave us plenty of time to wind up the elastic band again & prepare to go. The controller then came on & started putting his big jigsaw back together & off we went.

In my view the folk in the tower handled the situation very well.

One suggestion might be that they have some handheld radios that they can grab on the way out during an evacuation so that they can broadcast a 'situation update message' to the aircraft that are still on the ground.

edit - typo

We have some handhelds, but they are solely for communicating with our Tels guys and the Incident Co-ordination Officer.

We had very little info that we could have given you. The info that you got on the radio at about 1812Z was the first that we could give you with any accuracy. It was then that we decided on what the plan was. We were a little busy trying to get all of the info together, decide whether to open the CVCR and then re-start.

What a day...

False fire alarm in a relatively new tower building.
I wonder why this was not fixed when the tower became operational, or was it a case of someone unnecessarily pulling the lever at a fire alarm station?

It is also interesting to note that many towers in the USA have provisional ops plans in place in the event of such problems.
So, then the question becomes, why do not the folks at LHR have such alternate plans, or if they do, why were they not used?

For example, there was a small fire at the Cairo tower a few years ago, and ATC services proceeded uninterupted, from a van, parked at the airport boundry.
I know, because I was on final for 05R at the time.
So, if the Egyptians can do this, why can't the folks at LHR?