A passenger on a flight from Britain to New York saved the aircraft just moments before its departure after he claimed to have discovered four missing screws in the wing of the Virgin Atlantic plane, prompting the airline to cancel the flight shortly before takeoff last week. The British passenger, Phil Hardy, 41, was on flight "VS127" scheduled to depart from Manchester Airport in the UK on January 15 when he noticed "four screws were missing from the wing," deciding to alert the flight crew. Hardy stated, "I travel continuously, but my partner was horrified when I told her there were a few screws missing from the wing of the plane," adding, "At that point, I decided it was best to mention it to the flight attendant," as reported by the New York Post.
Footage recorded by Hardy showed an engineer climbing onto the wing of the aircraft before using a screwdriver to fix the issue. Hardy indicated that airline staff repeatedly reassured him there was no safety concern with the wing, noting that his worries increased recently after an incident with American airline Alaska Airlines, where part of the aircraft body broke off mid-flight.
On the other hand, a spokesman for Virgin Atlantic stated that engineers were immediately called in to conduct maintenance checks on the Airbus A330 before its scheduled departure to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. He added, "The flight was ultimately canceled to allow time for additional precautionary engineering checks, which provided our team with the maximum time to complete the inspections." Neil Firth, the chief local engineer for Airbus A330, explained that the damaged panel on the wing was a "secondary structure used to enhance the aircraft's aerodynamics." Both Virgin Atlantic and Airbus confirmed that there was no impact on the safety of flights in the previous week despite the incident.
