A SHOCKING new video from inside the car park at Luton Airport has shown the moment a fireball destroyed 1,500 vehicles and hospitalised five people.
The flames ripped through the Terminal Car Park 2 in Luton as holidaymakers looked on in horror and firefighters battled the inferno into the early hours of the morning.
Four firefighters and a member of airport staff were taken to hospital suffering from smoke inhalation and another firefighter was treated at the scene.
The airport was closed and travellers urged to stay away as all incoming flights were diverted elsewhere.
Flights have been cancelled since the fire broke out at around 9pm on Tuesday.
They resumed around 3pm on Wednesday with a RyanAir plane and private jets taking off.
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In a statement, the airport said: "Emergency services remain on the scene following last night's fire in Terminal Car Park 2.
Have you been affected by the fire at Luton Airport? Was your car in this car park? Email morgan.johnson1@thesun.co.uk
"Our priority remains supporting the emergency services and the safety of our passengers and staff.
"Therefore, we have now taken the decision to suspend all flights until 3pm on Wednesday."
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Andrew Hopkinson, chief fire officer for Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue Service, said the fire started in a vehicle with a diesel engine that had just arrived at the car park.
As many as 25,000 passengers could have been affected, with at least 140 flights cancelled since the fire started.
Passengers already on board planes were forced to disembark as more than 100 firefighters, three specialist aerial appliances and 15 fire engines were called to the scene.
Late last night the top floor of the car park collapsed, wrecking hundreds of motors parked on the lower levels.
Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue service said the building has suffered a "significant structural collapse" as firefighters were still trying to put out the blaze at 3.57am.
As many as 1,500 vehicles parked in the car park, which is a five-minute walk from the terminal entrance, could have been damaged.
Chloe Roberts parked her Ford Fiesta in the multi-storey before going on holiday to Iceland with her husband.
They are due to land back in the UK on Friday and live over 100 miles away from Luton Airport.
The business owner, 26, told the Sun: "I feel frustrated and upset. The worst thing is the fact that we don't know what's going on with our car.
"We don't know if it has been destroyed or not. Both of us are stressing out a bit.
"We came to Iceland to have a relaxing holiday and have been up half the night panicking about the car."
Naomi Issitt, 44, who is currently in Rhodes, Greece, with her husband Jeremy, 47, has a Volkswagen Tourag in the car park.to m
She told the Sun: "We are devastated. We just need to know if it's completely gone.
"We run our son's charity and we are supposed to be in Newquay by 10am on Friday to install an accessible defibrillator in his memory."
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."
Liz and Gary Blackmore, from Loughborough, said their £48,000 Mercedes was destroyed in the inferno.
"We're devastated," Liz, 57, told MailOnline. "The car was less than a year old and my daughter has taken the other car so now we're left with no car. We're horrified.
"We parked our Mercedes on the top floor of the multi-story Car Park 2, short-stay, Luton, and we'd gone on holiday to Portugal.
"We were returning yesterday evening and then suddenly the captain of the plane told us that we were diverting to Gatwick due to a large fire that has closed the airport."
Thick black smoke billowed from the building as footage captured several large explosions and blaring car alarms.
Russell Taylor, 41, an account director from Kinross in Scotland, saw the flames after flying in to Luton Airport from Edinburgh.
He said: "There were a couple of fire engines with a car ablaze on the upper floor of the car park at just after 9pm.
"A few minutes later most of the upper floor was alight, car alarms were going off with loud explosions from cars going up in flames.
"The speed in which the fire took hold was incredible."
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Passengers were told not to travel to the airport.
And all incoming flights with easyJet, Whizz and Ryanair were diverted to Stansted, Birmingham and East Midlands airports.
Passengers were due to land from destinations including Geneva, Dublin, Paris, Ibiza and Rhodes.
Roads in and out of Luton have been taped off by police, turning all cars away, while the DART system into the airport had been closed.
Jet-setters were forced to lug their heavy suitcases up the closed-off streets.
One couple, who would not give their names, were rushing to get the train to Gatwick - some 80 kilometres away.
The couple had been forced to spend the night in the Ibis as they waited to hear how to get home.
The woman told the Sun: "We're rushing to get the train to Gatwick now. What a palaver."
Hundreds of sleeping passengers litter the terminal, while the await to hear what’s happening with their flights.
Others stood staring at the departures board, which was coloured red and orange with departures and delays.
Tony and Caroline had been waiting to hear what was happening with their now-canned flight to Lisbon - which was set to take off this morning.
The Suffolk couple arrived last night and had planned to park their vehicle in the short-term car park before they jetted off.
But as they'd had a long drive, they decided to leave it at the hotel.
Tony told The Sun: "We're lucky - our car wasn't in there. Initially it was (booked in) but we got to the hotel late. We were lucky really."
Mr Hopkinson said more than 100 firefighters tackled the blaze at its peak.
He said: "Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue Service's fire control received an initial 999 call at 8.47pm yesterday evening, reporting a car on fire on the third floor of the Terminal car park two behind me here at London Luton Airport.
"Our first two fire appliances arrived on scene just a shade under 10 minutes later to work alongside firefighters from Luton Airport Fire Service.
"On arrival my officers were faced with a severe and rapidly spreading fire involving a large number of vehicles that ultimately spread to multiple floors and involved a partial collapse of the car park.
"The incident was declared a major incident at 9.38pm. The car park has a capacity of just over 1,900 cars and we estimate up to 1,500 cars are in the affected car park.
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"At its peak we had 15 fire appliances, over 100 firefighters and a number of specialist resources including the one you will see over my right-hand shoulder, with resources provided by neighbouring fire and rescue services."
Luton is Britain's fifth busiest airport after Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Manchester, and it handled 13.3million passengers in 2022, according to the Civil Aviation Authority.
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