External examination of choice to close after fire would have more credibility than review by its director. It is not too late

“We purchase and pay for a resilient setup from our suppliers,” Thomas Woldbye, Heathrow’s under-pressure chief executive, told the transport select committee, adding that the airport racked up energy costs of £135m a year. “Are we then also supposed to have a setup next to it? And then we would have to have a whole power station at the cost of billions to the airlines.”

So runs Heathrow’s case that there was no alternative to closing the airport for a full day last month after a fire knocked out a nearby National Grid substation, one of three serving the airport.