An alert passenger, perhaps just trying to be helpful and still having the memory of the January 5 incident in which a side panel on an airplane blew off in midflight due to a problem with the screws, noticed that there were missing bolts on the wing of his plane and told the cabin crew.
The Virgin Atlantic flight was canceled moments before takeoff earlier this week.
It was clearly a case of better safe than sorry, however.
The airline erred on the side of caution and canceled the Manchester, England, flight to New York for further inspection.
Both Virgin Atlantic and Airbus, the airplanes manufacturer, said that no passengers were at risk. An Airbus spokesperson said that the panel in question is used “to improve the aerodynamic performance of the aircraft.”
They did not say that the bolts, or fasteners as they call them in England, were missing from the A330. The flight was canceled “to provide time for precautionary additional engineering maintenance checks.” Passengers were flown to New York on different flights.
A Virgin Atlantic spokesperson said that the “safety of our customers and crew is always our top priority and this was not compromised at any point. … We always work well above industry safety standards and the aircraft is now back in service. We’d like to apologize to our customers for the delay to their journeys.”
A previous Virgin Atlantic flight this month was forced to turn back to Manchester Airport en route to Barbados due to the cockpit reportedly filling with smoke.
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