A Virgin Atlantic flight from Manchester to New York’s JFK airport was cancelled just before take-off after a passenger noticed an issue with the bolts on one of the wings.
Flight VS127 was prevented from taking off on 15 January after a passenger saw that the tops of four fasteners were missing on a panel on one of the wings. It was cancelled in order to allow engineers to carry out an additional inspection of the aircraft.
Both Virgin Atlantic and Airbus emphasised that there was “no impact to the safety of the aircraft”. An Airbus spokesperson explained that the panel in question is used “to improve the aerodynamic performance of the aircraft”.
Each of the wing panels on an Airbus A330 has 119 fasteners, so the fact that only four were missing did not impact “the structural integrity or load capability of the wing, and the aircraft was safe to operate”, they added.