Passengers at Heathrow Airport were forced to fly without bags after the Terminal 2 baggage system failed.
Travellers left their luggage behind to catch their flights - with images from inside Terminal 2 showing a sea of suitcases arranged on the floor
Scenes were described as "pandemonium" as the luggage belts went down, meaning check-in desks could not accept any cases.
Some passengers questioned how planes were taking off despite carrying none of the passengers' cases.
Dimitri Spiro wrote on Twitter : "Hi Heathrow, do you have any idea where my luggage is? I was on flight A3609 that just landed in Athens.
"Also, how could you let a plane take off without putting any of the passenger luggage on board?".
Another disgruntled traveller wrote: "Whoo Hoo. I'm leaving without my suitcase.
"Heathrow is pandemonium, none of the luggage belts are working so they've left 90% of suitcases and taking off without them.
"I'm going to be bare a**ed in Sydney it seems."
The system failure comes just days after the same thing happened at the airport's Terminal 5 last week.
Among those caught up in the disruption last week was comedian Eddie Izzard.
He took to Twitter, writing: "Luggage belts down at Heathrow Terminal 5. I hope BA can get this moving soon as passengers have been waiting a long time now."
A picture posted by the comic showed huge queues of travellers waiting with their bags.
A Heathrow spokesperson said: "We apologise for disruption experienced as a result of an issue with our baggage system in Terminal 2 yesterday evening.
"This means passengers departing Terminal 2 may have travelled without their hold bags.'
"We are working closely with our airline partners to reunite passengers with their luggage as soon as possible and those affected should contact their airlines for more information."
