Sailors forced to abandon Royal Navy’s HMS Prince of Wales

Power was lost on Britain’s newest £3.1bn aircraft carrier after the warship suffered problems with a high-voyage electric cable that keeps her ‘juiced up’ while in port, according to the Portsmouth News.

Lights and heating shut off, with 150 members of her crew forced to stay onboard HMS Queen Elizabeth while the situation was resolved.

The senior service has not confirmed what caused the outage. However, sources say ‘the cable that goes from the dockyard was ripped out somehow and the ship lost power’.

Power is understood to have been restored, with the crew back on board and a Royal Navy spokesman said no one was injured during the power cut.

Retired Commander and maritime expert, Mike Critchley, told the Daily Mail: “Questions will be asked by the Navy how this happened. It sounds like quite a major incident. A ship without electricity isn’t a ship. These things should not happen.”

He added the weather was bad and could be to blame for the loss of power.

HMS Queen Elizabeth is due to go on its first deployment next year, with its sister ship following soon after.