He noticed something strange on the wing of the plane and told his wife.
She panicked and they both communicated her concerns to the crew.
Minutes later, flight VS127 to New York was suspended.
What did the passenger see?
The episode happened last week before a Virgin Atlantic Airbus 330 plane took off from Manchester (United Kingdom) to the United States.
It was the British
Phil Hardy
, 41, who realized that something was wrong with one of the wings of the vehicle.
From inside the plane, and when the crew was informing the passengers of the flight's safety mechanisms, Hardy noticed that one of the wings was missing four “fasteners.”
“To be safe” he told a flight attendant and she quickly called the engineers.
"I'm a good flyer, but my partner didn't like the information I was telling her and started panicking, and I was trying to calm her down as much as I could," Hardy told Kennedy News.
They had to cancel the flight
The engineers arrived immediately
.
They climbed onto the wing of the plane and checked with a screwdriver to see if the fasteners were in order.
And they were
.
However, Hardy wasn't sure.
He remembered that a while ago an Alaska Airlines plane had lost its door plug in mid-flight.
An engineer worked on the plane's wing at the time.
An airline representative said that, although the detail that the passenger noticed had been reviewed,
the flight had to be suspended
to “allow time to perform additional and preventive engineering maintenance checks, which allowed our team 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 time. We always work well above industry safety standards and the aircraft is now back in service," highlighted the representative in the notice.
Finally, the flight was rescheduled and Phil and his wife arrived at their destination.
The passenger had noticed 4 loose screws.
Just a scare
Later,
Neil Firth
, the Airbus A330 wing engineer, confirmed that what was affected was a secondary structure used to improve the aerodynamics of the plane, therefore “there was no impact on the structural integrity or load capacity of the wing.” ”.
“The aircraft was safe to operate,” he acknowledged.
Video
The Virgin Atlantic flight from Manchester to New York was canceled for this reason.
In the end it was nothing, but they should have checked it with more time.
Just in case, the plane underwent a maintenance check and the screws were changed.