Airbus A330-343. Instagram @kaviation_sh
A Virgin Atlantic flight bound for New York was canceled just before takeoff last week when an alarmed passenger noticed several screws missing from the wing of the plane.
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41-year-old Briton Phil Hardy was aboard flight VS127 at Manchester Airport in the United Kingdom on January 15 when he noticed the four missing screws during and decided to alert the cabin crew.
Engineers were called to perform maintenance checks on the aircraft, an Airbus A330, before its scheduled departure to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, a Virgin Atlantic representative said.
Flight to New York is canceled when passenger notices missing screws in the plane’s wing. Twitter Reproduction
Images recorded by Hardy showed one of the engineers climbing onto the wing of the plane before using a screwdriver to fiddle with some of the fasteners.
Hardy said the airline staff repeatedly reassured him that there was no safety issue with the wing, but his fear was heightened due to the recent incident in which a plane from Alaska Airlines lost a door cover and a piece of its fuselage flew off mid-flight.
Both Virgin and Airbus emphasized that there was no impact on the safety of last week’s aircraft, despite the missing fittings.
The Virgin representative said the flight ended up being canceled to “provide time for additional precautionary engineering maintenance checks, which allowed our team to have maximum time to complete their inspections.”
Passengers were rebooked on other alternative flights to New York.
