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News


NYC-BOUND FLIGHT CANCELED WHEN PASSENGER NOTICES MISSING BOLTS ON PLANE WING

By Emily Crane

Published Jan. 22, 2024, 10:26 a.m. ET

A New York-bound Virgin Atlantic flight was canceled just moments before takeoff
last week when an alarmed passenger said he spotted several screws missing from
the plane’s wing.

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British traveler Phil Hardy, 41, was onboard Flt. VS127 at Manchester Airport in
the UK on Jan. 15 when he noticed the four missing fasteners during a safety
briefing for passengers and decided to alert the cabin crew.

“I’m a good flyer, but my partner was not loving the information I was telling
her and starting to panic, and I was trying to put her mind at rest as much as I
could,” Hardy told the Kennedy News agency of the moment he spotted the missing
fixings.

“I thought it was best to mention it to a flight attendant to be on the safe
side.”

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Engineers were promptly called out to carry out maintenance checks on the Airbus
A330 aircraft before its scheduled takeoff to John F. Kennedy International
Airport in Queens in New York City, a Virgin Atlantic rep said.

5
A passenger onboard the Virgin Atlantic flight at Manchester Airport in the UK
said he noticed four missing fasteners as he looked out his window. Kennedy News
& Media

Footage shot by Hardy showed one of the engineers climbing onto the plane’s wing
before using a screwdriver to tinker with some of the fasteners.

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Hardy said airline staff repeatedly reassured him there was no safety issue with
the wing, but his fear was heightened given the recent ordeal where an Alaska
Airlines plane lost its door plug and a chunk of its fuselage flew off
mid-flight.


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Both Virgin and Airbus stressed there was no impact to the safety of last week’s
aircraft despite the missing fixings.

5
Engineers were promptly called out to perform maintenance checks on the Airbus
A330 aircraft before its scheduled takeoff to John F. Kennedy International
Airport in New York City. Kennedy News & Media
5
Virgin and the plane’s maker, Airbus, both stressed there was no impact to the
safety of the aircraft despite the missing fixings. Kennedy News & Media

Advertisement

5
Footage shot by Hardy shows one of the engineers climbing onto the plane’s wing
before using a screwdriver to tinker with some of the fasteners. Kennedy News &
Media

The Virgin representative said the flight ended up being axed to “provide time
for precautionary additional engineering maintenance checks, which allowed our
team the maximum time to complete their inspections.

“The safety of our customers and crew is always our top priority and this was
not compromised at any point,” the rep said in the statement. “We always work
well above industry safety standards and the aircraft is now back in service.”

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Neil Firth, the Airbus Local Chief Wing Engineer for A330, added that the
affected panel was a secondary structure used to improve the aerodynamics of the
plane.

5
Phil Hardy, 41, and his partner, Magdalena Bobusia, 46, eventually made it to
the Big Apple after being rebooked on another flight. Kennedy News & Media

“Each of these panels has 119 fasteners, so there was no impact to the
structural integrity or load capability of the wing, and the aircraft was safe
to operate,” he said.

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“As a precautionary measure, the aircraft underwent an additional maintenance
check, and the fasteners were replaced.”

What do you think? Post a comment.

Passengers were subsequently rebooked onto alternate flights to the Big Apple.

“We’d like to apologize to our customers for the delay to their journeys,” the
Virgin representative said.


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