Luton airport: Passengers flee as car park bursts into flames

The flames ripped through the Terminal Car Park 2 in Luton on Tuesday as holidaymakers looked on in horror and firefighters battled the inferno into the early hours of the morning.

Four firefighters and a member of airport staff were taken to hospital suffering from smoke inhalation and another firefighter was treated at the scene.

The airport was closed and travellers were urged to stay away as all incoming flights were diverted elsewhere, The Sun reports.

Flights were cancelled after the fire broke out at around 9pm.

As many as 25,000 passengers could have been affected, with at least 140 flights cancelled since the fire started.

Passengers already on board planes were forced to disembark as more than 100 firefighters, three specialist aerial appliances and 15 fire engines were called to the scene.

On Tuesday night the top floor of the car park collapsed, wrecking hundreds of cars parked on the lower levels.

Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue service said the building has suffered a “significant structural collapse” as firefighters were still trying to put out the blaze at 3.57am.

As many as 1,500 vehicles parked in the car park, which is a five-minute walk from the terminal entrance, could have been damaged.

Chloe Roberts parked her Ford Fiesta in the multi-storey before going on holiday to Iceland with her husband.

They are due to land back in the UK on Friday and live over 100 miles away from Luton Airport.

The business owner, 26, told The Sun: “I feel frustrated and upset. The worst thing is the fact that we don’t know what’s going on with our car.

“We don’t know if it has been destroyed or not. Both of us are stressing out a bit.

“We came to Iceland to have a relaxing holiday and have been up half the night panicking about the car.”

Naomi Issitt, 44, who is currently in Rhodes, Greece, with her husband Jeremy, 47, has a Volkswagen Tourag in the car park.

She told the Sun: “We are devastated. We just need to know if it’s completely gone.

“We run our son’s charity and we are supposed to be in Newquay by 10am on Friday to install an accessible defibrillator in his memory.”

Chris Meacey and his partner were set to jet off to Slovakia today – and parked their car in Luton Airport’s short-stay terminal overnight.

He heard the news there had been a fire in the early hours of this morning and raced down as his “baby girl” – a Ford Custom – was inside on the second floor.

Chris said: “She’s in there, she’s got a tear in her eye.

“It was quarter to three, there was smoke, there were flames, I heard explosions. It was what sounds like gas tanks exploding.”

Pointing at the charred shell of the car park, Chris said his beloved van was near the undamaged cars closest to the airport terminal.

Chris said he didn’t know when he’d get his much-loved van back on safe ground, adding: “We don’t know how to get her out.”

Liz and Gary Blackmore, from Loughborough, said their £48,000 Mercedes was destroyed in the inferno.

This story first appeared in The Sun and has been reproduced with permission.