Fire breaks out near British Airways plane as crews rush to Heathrow Airport

A fire broke out at Heathrow Airport tonight. Flames took hold on stairs next to a British Airways plane, resulting in fire crews being called to the scene.

The incident took place at Terminal 5, with the fire captured on camera and shared on social media. Pictures and video show the drama unfolding next to an A320 plane.

Flames and a huge cloud of black smoke were seen pouring from the set of mobile stairs right beside the plane at the UK's busiest airport.

The ground vehicle was ablaze so fiercely the thick column of smoke so high it could be seen from behind several other terminal buildings at the busy airport, which is in the Hounslow district of west London.

The Mirror reports that, fortunately, a British Airways spokesperson said no injuries have been reported as a result of the incident.

But firefighters are seen in videos posted online, battling to put out the blaze with water jets just yards from the terminal building.

People sharing the pictures and footage expressed their shock on social media sites, including X, which was known as Twitter.

Heathrow Airport confirmed no passengers were onboard the aircraft at the time. A spokesperson said the airport fire service had attended to the incident promptly.

The aircraft affected, registered as G-EUYO, last flew in to Heathrow from Athens, Greece, at 5.14pm this afternoon, but no one was onboard the plane when the fire happened beside it.

A British Airways spokesperson said: "Emergency services quickly extinguished a small fire of a third party ground vehicle.

No customers were impacted and there were no injuries." Metropolitan Police said officers attended to provide assistance.

In April, images showed two passenger planes colliding by the runway at Heathrow Airport, leading to emergency services racing to the scene.

Footage posted on social media shows a Virgin Atlantic plane’s wing touching a British Airways aircraft. The Virgin Boeing 787-9 plane had completed a flight and was being towed to a different part of the airfield.

It's understood there were no passengers on board at the time of the incident. Virgin said it has launched an investigation into the collision.

The aircraft has been taken out of service and engineering teams are performing maintenance checks on it, the airline added.

The British Airways aircraft was stationary at the time of the incident and is being assessed by engineering teams, the company said. BA said it has provided an alternative aircraft to “limit the impact on our customers”.

Don't miss the latest news from around Scotland and beyond - Sign up to our daily newsletter here.