Mass Evacuation After Suspicious Luggage Found
There’s nothing quite like the feeling of déjà vu for travelers at Gatwick Airport, and on 22 November 2024, that sense was all too real. The South Terminal became a scene straight out of a disaster movie as alarms sounded and people were ushered out after a bomb scare surfaced around breakfast time. Police were alerted at 8:20 CET to a suspicious item lurking in the checked baggage—enough to put every traveler on edge.
An Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) crew was rushed to the site. Their job? Make sure the threat—whatever it was—never translated into a tragedy. Offices were closed, signals were sent, and everyone from pilots to airport coffee sellers was told to wait it out. The South Terminal was entirely evacuated, sealing off access even to those desperate for an early holiday flight. The whole process left the terminal shuttered for roughly four hours, not reopening until 16:00 CET after the all-clear was finally given.
Travelers Stranded, Airlines Scrambling
This shutdown wasn’t just an inconvenience—it was chaos for the roughly 100,000 passengers who had big plans or important meetings on the line. Delayed flights stacked up. Cancellations rippled across the day’s schedule, and the headache didn’t end with the runway. Trains to Gatwick ground to a halt. Taxi ranks stretched to hundreds deep, as travelers, with nowhere else to go, eyed each other warily and tried to call cabs on overloaded apps. Some, refusing to lose the day, went old-school and started hitchhiking from the airport perimeter.
British Airways and Norwegian, two of the biggest names at Gatwick, spent hours dealing with confused passengers and scrambled crews. Airlines like Vueling made the tough call to turn flights from Barcelona and Seville around mid-air, sending them straight back to Spain—no easy decision when hundreds are waiting for a sun holiday. Other travelers found themselves stuck outside the locked-down South Terminal—like Nejadeen Braham, who missed her departure to Jamaica, finding herself wandering outside the airport while officials kept the doors closed.
Authorities tried to keep things moving at the North Terminal, which stayed open throughout. But with most Gatwick traffic funneling through two terminals, the pressure was on for everyone—staff and passengers alike. Airport bosses and Sussex Police urged everyone to double-check the latest updates directly with their airlines. Meanwhile, some trains to the airport remained suspended, compounding the stress for those desperate for a way out.
Adding to the drama, Sussex Police briefly detained two individuals during their investigation. After interviews and checking the footage, both were cleared and released, with police confirming they posed no threat whatsoever. Relief swept through the crowd, but the frustration of missed connections, hours of waiting, and the slow grind back to order lingered long after the official all-clear.
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