HOLIDAYMAKERS at Luton Airport will have to wait days to find out if their cars were destroyed because the wreckage may collapse.
Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue Service said it received a report of a car fire on level three of the airport’s Terminal Car Park 2 last night.
ReutersHolidaymakers will have to wait days to find out if their cars were destroyed[/caption]
ReutersA view shows burnt vehicles in Terminal Car Park 2 at Luton Airport[/caption]
ReutersFlames ripped through the multi-storey car park last night[/caption]
Up to 1,500 vehicles were inside the car park at the time of the fire and the blaze is believed to have started with a diesel-powered car.
There is no suggestion the blaze happened intentionally.
Families at the airport were being warned no cars would be able to leave the wrecked car park until at least Friday.
The Department for Transport said it was looking into the matter and would update at the earliest opportunity.
A couple, who refused to talk to The Sun, walked away with their head down after a security guard told them they wouldn’t be able to get their car out of the charred lot.
The man told the couple “even if your car isn’t damaged, you won’t get it out today or tomorrow – it’s unsafe”.
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 told the Sun: “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.”
Diggers and other excavators are now at work – which one woman said she’d been told was to free the undamaged cars.
The jet-setter whose car is trapped in the building, who did not want to be named, said airport staff told her the work was underway to make a road as the main car park entrance had been destroyed.
The woman, who landed last night after heading abroad for a wedding, claimed she had been told to pop down this morning and get her car, but had since been told no.
The woman said she was told contractors were working to get the vehicles out of Car Park 1, but they said the damaged building could “drop any minute”.
SuppliedChris Meacey and his partner were set to jet off to Slovakia today[/caption]
EPAPassengers wait for flights to resume at the airport[/caption]
ReutersThe charred remains of a badly burnt vehicle[/caption]
Footage on social media appeared to show a vehicle going up in flames Published: [#item_custom_pubDate]
