A body representing more than 90 airlines using Heathrow Airport has threatened to take legal action if a settlement over the costs they incurred from Friday’s day-long closure is not reached.

The chief executive of Heathrow Airline Operators’ Committee Nigel Wicking told Sky News he hoped the matter could be “amicably settled at some point in time” but said, “if we don’t get good enough recourse and repayment in terms of the costs, then yes, there might be a case for legal action”.

“I would hope not. But in some of these situations that’s the only course once you’ve gone through everything else”, he added.

Money blog: Price of a pint is about to hit big milestone

Heathrow, Europe’s largest airport, was closed from the early hours of Friday morning after a fire at a major electricity substation hit electricity supplies.

No planes were allowed to take off or land, causing flight diversions. About 1,300 flights were impacted with roughly 250,000 passengers affected.

Some flights resumed on Friday evening but airlines faced difficulties and passengers were disrupted due to airline crew being in different parts of the world.

Mr Wicking also called for an independent investigation of what happened and why recovery took so long.

“Airlines have a regulatory duty to take care of their passengers,” he said. “But in this particular case, we do feel that it was another party that caused the situation.”

Energy secretary Ed Miliband said he was working with energy regulator Ofgem and commissioned the National Energy System Operator to investigate the fire at the substation incident.

‘Appalling’ communication

The head of the airline group representing companies such as British Airways and Virgin Atlantic was also critical of Heathrow’s communication.

He said it was “appalling” that airlines had to wait until midnight on Friday to confirm terminal two would open on Saturday.

The situation was “not justifiable given the amount of money that has been spent on Heathrow over the years and the fact that it is the most expensive airport in the world”.

The hit to airlines

Airlines and suppliers alone could face costs of “at least” £20m for the day of halted operations, said travel expert Paul Charles, a former Virgin Atlantic communications director and chief executive of travel consultancy The PC Agency.

The figure includes an estimate of expenses for passengers, crew accommodation, additional transport, fuel and other costs for the aircraft themselves.

Analysts at investment bank Jefferies said compensation for delays could knock 1% to 3% off profits at BA and Aer Lingus parent company IAG.

But the outage could be considered a force majeure event, meaning passengers would not be entitled to compensation, according to the head of the Spanish airlines association Javier Gandara.

Heathrow response

Heathrow has been contacted for comment.

Its CEO Thomas Woldbye said in a post on LinkedIn today he was “proud” of how the airport responded to the outage.

He said: “So, was I proud of the situation we found ourselves in? Of course not.

“But I am incredibly grateful for, and proud of, what was achieved to get us out of the situation in such a short amount of time by teams of people we all rely on across the entire airport eco-system, but who rarely get the credit they deserve.”

Mr Woldbye previously said a backup transformer failed during the power outage, meaning systems had to be closed in line with safety procedures so power supplies could be restructured from two remaining substations.

Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said the airport took the decision to suspend flights because it needed to reboot systems after switching to a different power supply.

Three men have been found guilty of plotting to murder a member of the Securitas heist gang that stole £54m in Britain’s biggest-ever cash robbery.

Paul Allen, 46, was left paralysed from the chest down after he was shot twice as he stood in the kitchen of his home in Woodford, east London, on 11 July 2019.

The former cage fighter lived in the large detached rented house with his partner and three young children after being released from an 18-year prison sentence over the 2006 raid of a cash depot in Tonbridge, Kent.

Much of the £54m loaded into a 7.5-tonne lorry – after the gang kidnapped the Securitas manager and his family and tied up staff at gunpoint – has never been recovered.

After the robbery, Allen fled to Morocco with his friend and heist mastermind Lee Murray, a former cage fighter, before being extradited back to the UK.

Attack likened Hollywood blockbuster

Louis Ahearne, 36, his brother Stewart Ahearne, 46, and Daniel Kelly, 46, denied conspiring to murder him between 26 June and 12 July 2019 but were found guilty after an Old Bailey trial.

Prosecutors said the background to the shooting was that Allen – who did not give evidence in the trial – was a “sophisticated” career criminal, but did not suggest a motive for the murder plot.

Metropolitan Police detective superintendent Matt Webb described the Ahearnes and Kelly as “hardened organised criminals”, who “acted together in a well-planned and orchestrated manner to shoot their victim”.

“This attack may look like the plot to a Hollywood blockbuster but the reality is something quite different,” he said.

“This was horrific criminality. The court heard how this was a clear and defined attempt to take a man’s life with those responsible making significant efforts to ensure this was successful.”

Swiss museum heist

The month before the shooting, the Ahearne brothers and Kelly carried out a heist of the Museum of Far Eastern Arts in Geneva, where they stole more than $3.5m (£2.78m) worth of Ming dynasty antiques, the court heard.

They flew to Hong Kong, where they sold a porcelain bowl at an auction house before the Ming vase was recovered by an undercover officer posing as a buyer at a central London hotel.

The Ahearne brothers were jailed in Switzerland over the raid, while three men, including ex-West Ham academy footballer Kaine Wright were jailed in the UK over their roles in the plot to sell the £2m antique.

Wright and Kelly are also wanted in Japan over the robbery of a Tokyo jewellery store in 2015 in which a security guard was punched in the face.

They and another man are alleged to have posed as customers before smashing the glass showcases and stealing jewellery valued at 106,272,000 yen – about £630,000, according to details revealed in a lengthy extradition battle.

The day before Mr Allen’s shooting, Kelly and Louis Ahearne used a Renault Captur rented by Stewart Ahearne in a burglary on a gated community in Kent, the court heard.

The pair, along with another man, posed as police officers, even fixing a blue flashing light to the car, to gain access to the grounds, then broke into an apartment to steal money, handbags and designer trainers.

They were each sentenced to five years in jail for the crime in 2020.

The same rented vehicle used was used as the “mission car” as the Ahearne brothers and Kelly travelled from their home turf in Woolwich, southeast London, prosecutors said.

The court heard they had fitted a tracking device to Allen’s family Mercedes to follow his movements.

‘He’s been shot’

He was stood in the kitchen just after 11pm as at least six bullets were fired from a Glock handgun from the fence line of his back garden, two of which hit him in the hand and throat.

His partner Jade Bovingdon, was heard screaming, “He’s been shot, he’s been shot.”

A private security guard provided first aid and armed police took over before paramedics arrived.

Allen was taken to hospital for emergency treatment and underwent an operation to remove a bullet lodged in his spinal cord. He now uses a wheelchair.

Five shell casings were recovered close to a summer house, while DNA on swabs taken from a nearby fence panel was matched to Kelly and Louis Ahearne, jurors were told.

The Ahearne brothers made no comment when they were arrested but Kelly said in a prepared statement he had only heard about the shooting of Allen three days later.

“Upon release, I would even like to see how he is,” he said. “I have got no issues with him; I’ve known him for 25 years, and we have been friends the whole time.”

A British tourist has been left seriously injured after a suspected gas explosion destroyed a three-storey B&B in Rome.

Grant Paterson, 54, from East Kilbride in South Lanarkshire, has reportedly been left severely burned after the explosion in the Monteverde area of the Italian city on Sunday morning.

Mr Paterson was pulled out of the ruins by firefighters and is currently undergoing treatment at Sant’Eugenio Hospital.

Sky News was told by officials Mr Paterson has suffered third degree burns to at least 70% of his body and is in a critical condition.

A witness at the scene said Mr Paterson was screaming under the collapsed building before being saved by the emergency crew.

A neighbour reported the explosion made his house windows shake, while another witness thought it had been a bomb or an earthquake.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said it is supporting Mr Paterson’s family and is in contact with the local authorities.

It is understood Mr Paterson arrived in Rome on 17 March and was due to return home on Monday.

Social media posts show he had visited famous tourist hot spots such as the Colosseum and the Pantheon before the incident.

He wrote he had arrived in Rome, adding: “Accommodation is beautiful.

“This should be a good week… if I don’t get killed in some ungodly way.”

Read more from Sky News:
Gisele Pelicot’s son relives moment he discovered his father was a monster
Turkey protesters met with tear gas and rubber bullets

The B&B, named Mamma Roma, was on Via Vitellia in the busy neighbourhood of Monteverde, in the southwest part of Rome.

Flying debris from the explosion, which occurred around 8.40am, damaged several cars and part of the wall of Villa Doria Pamphili – a seventeenth-century villa which also serves as the representative seat of the Italian government.

More than a dozen people were evacuated and are currently unable to return to their homes.

Rome Mayor Roberto Gualtieri told Sky News efforts are being made to find a solution.

Rome’s Public Prosecutors’ Offices has opened a probe into the case. At the moment it is a suspected gas leak.

The mayor earlier visited the scene and told reporters he had ordered a full investigation into the explosion.

Mr Gualtieri said: “The important thing is that fortunately there are no victims, although unfortunately one person was seriously injured.

“Most likely he is a guest of a hospitality facility, of Scottish origin.

“We don’t know his exact condition, but he suffered burns, and this also suggests that it was an explosion caused by gas, which also causes flames.

“It was a very loud explosion, a building collapsed and the wall of Villa Pamphili was also damaged.”