Escalator Fire at JFK Airport Leaves 9 Injured and Forced Evacuation of Hundreds

An escalator caught fire at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport early Wednesday morning leaving some travelers injured and forcing hundreds more to evacuate. Here's what we know regarding this incident.

Morning Disruption

According to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, reports of smoke filling an area in JFK's Terminal 8 started arriving around 7 am Eastern Time on Wednesday, July 24th.

This caused almost 1,000 travellers to be evacuated from JFK Terminal 8. The New York City Fire Department responded to the scene and reported that there was a fire in one of the escalators.

Ten people were injured with four individuals being transported to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

Photos on X show passengers crowding on the apron. Reportedly, around 990 people were bussed to different terminals.

Traveler Elena Delgado, when speaking to CBS New York, noted, “People started gasping, and people started kind of freaking out around themselves because they saw a huge black gulp of smoke coming toward them.”

Delgado was waiting for a flight to Texas when the chaos ensued. She further noted that as the smoke continued to billow in the terminal, most passengers were still inside for another 20 minutes as instructions from airport employees proved confusing.

She noted that employees told passengers not to go through the exits and to wait until the smoke cleared, showing how confused most people were at the time.

The cause of the fire remains unknown and is undergoing investigation.

JFK Terminal 8 is the home of American Airlines and its OneWorld partners. On the morning of the fire, various American flights were impacted. Some were delayed heavily with a small minority being cancelled.

Despite the fire taking place in the morning, American Airlines flights throughout the day received disruptions. Delays ranged from one hour all the way up to 22 hours.

Not all American Airlines flights were disrupted a few were still on time with minimal delays.

Despite Terminal 8 being used by American’s OneWorld partners, none of those flights were significantly delayed according to Flightradar24.

That same morning, flights from Qatar Airways, Cathay Pacific, and British Airways departed on time.

It should be noted that multiple other flights at JFK were delayed, particularly from Delta Air Lines. These delays continue to be effects of the widespread CrowdStrike outage from a few delays earlier which had massive implications worldwide.

While most airlines have recovered from the outage, Delta remains the worst-hit as many of its flights continue to suffer from hefty delays or outright cancellations.

Current Updates

As of 8 pm Eastern Time on the day of the fire, JFK is suffering an average delay of 66 minutes for departing flights. The disruption index is a 5.0 indicating “major problems with long delays and several cancelled flights”.

That disruption index is mainly attributed to the issues affecting Delta and also the usual congestion-related delays that JFK is notorious for.

Back at Terminal 8, operations have resumed as normal. Flights departing throughout the evening are mostly running on schedule. These include most OneWorld partner airline flights like those from British Airways, Finnair, Qatar Airways, and Royal Jordanian.

One British Airways flight to Heathrow was delayed one hour but this is not related to the escalator fire.

Most American Airlines mainline flights are unaffected with departures to Los Angeles, London, Buenos Aires, Delhi, and Rome among others estimated to depart on time.

However, American Eagle flights, specifically those operated by Republic Airways as most are from JFK, continue to suffer delays. Flights in the evening to Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, and Raleigh-Durham are expecting delays over one hour.