Passenger Notices Missing Fasteners on Plane's Wing Moments Before Takeoff

Leah Barkoukis | January 22, 2024 2:30 PM

Ten days after the cabin door of an Alaska Airlines flight blew off midair, an observant passenger on a Virgin Atlantic flight noticed several fasteners were missing from the plane’s wing moments before takeoff.

The British passenger, 41-year-old Phil Hardy, notified the crew on his flight from the UK to New York.

“I’m a good flyer, but my partner was not loving the information I was telling her and starting to panic, and I was trying to put her mind at rest as much as I could,” Hardy told the Kennedy News agency, reports the New York Post. “I thought it was best to mention it to a flight attendant to be on the safe side.”

Engineers were called out to inspect the wing and can be seen using a screwdriver to address the issue in video Hardy recorded.

Airbus and Virgin claim no safety issues were posed by the missing fasteners.

“The safety of our customers and crew is always our top priority and this was not compromised at any point,” a Virgin representative said in a statement. “We always work well above industry safety standards and the aircraft is now back in service.”

Neil Firth, an engineer for Airbus, echoed those remarks.

“Each of these panels has 119 fasteners, so there was no impact to the structural integrity or load capability of the wing, and the aircraft was safe to operate,” he said, according to the Post. “As a precautionary measure, the aircraft underwent an additional maintenance check, and the fasteners were replaced.”