St Patrick’s party diverted to Ireland in Heathrow chaos

A group of friends who travelled to the US to celebrate St Patrick’s Day have now been forced to keep the party going in Ireland, after their flight was diverted.

Heathrow, Europe’s busiest airport, will be closed all day Friday due to the fire at a nearby electrical substation that supplies it with power, with more than 1,350 flights thought to be affected by the disruption.

One of them was Steve Bruce’s flight back from Boston, due to land at the airport on Friday morning.

Steve and his friends, from Derby, had missed the St Patrick’s Parade on 16 March they hoped to join, but ironically ended up in Ireland.

Shortly before expecting to land at Heathrow, Steve said passengers were told they were being diverted to Shannon, Ireland.

“An hour later we landed in Shannon and we sat on the ground for six hours – along with 12 flights from America. We just sat there waiting,” he said.

He added the airline and airport staff had been “fantastic”, saying “they couldn’t have done anymore”.

The group will have to wait until Saturday to fly home from the Irish village of Knock to East Midlands Airport.

For now, Steve said they were looking forward to a nice day out and to find a bar.

“Well what do you do in Ireland when you’ve got 11 boys with you?” he said.

“We’re just going to have a day out. We’re all shattered but we’ve just got to carry on now.”

Despite the disruption to the end of their trip, Steve said he and his friends had a “brilliant time”.