No flights could take off or land for over 12 hours last month after a power cut at a substation in Hayes which also affected more than 60,000 homes.

The National Grid argued a further two sites could’ve kept operations running and MPs have heard concerns were raised with Heathrow Airport about its power supply days before it had to close.

Nigel Wickering from the Heathrow Airline Operators’ Committee says he mentioned incidents of ‘theft of wire and cable’, which on one occasion, ‘took out the lights on the runway’.

But Heathrow chief executive Thomas Woldbye, who is being questioned by MPs, stands by the decision to shut: