Heathrow Airport was forced to cancel scores of flights and other aircraft flying into the UK had to be diverted to other airports after a crash landing

The busiest international runway on earth, today, it was at a standstill, planes static, and from this, the heart of Heathrow, disruption quickly spread. Tonight, there are signs it could engulf more than 30,000 passengers.

You are gonna have to contact the police , and try to rebook your flight with British Airways.

Airport staff are bearing the brunt as 221 flights are cancelled. Heathrow tonight has just announced it has special permission for night flights to minimize this backlog.

I'm trying to get to Italy, and I checked the website from work about literally half an hour ago, and they said there was a 15 minutes plane, now I've arrived, they tell me it's cancelled.

Tonight, this coach carried passengers who should have flown in for connecting flights, some are angry at the lack of help.

Uh, if we lost this flight, we had to phone this number, and get another flight, if there was another flight available.

Earlier, passengers who'd expected to land at Heathrow found themselves at airports like Standsted and Luton instead , many were highly confused.

We've been rerouted to some places I don't even know what town this is, and we're going to the United States. So we are actually back to Heathrow, and re-arrange our flight.

It's the first time we came here, and we don't know where we have to go, and how…

The Prime Minister's flight en route to China from Heathrow was among the very first affected, onboard the aircraft was ITV News's Tom Bradby.

The whole airport is like sort of, plane park, there are planes everywhere, backed up, uh, waiting to get on.

Tonight as Heathrow staff prepare for desperate passengers bedding down, the emotional impact of this turmoil is taking its toll.