NYC-bound flight canceled when passenger notices missing bolts on plane wing
stopthatgirl7@kbin.social to 
nypost.com
A New York-bound Virgin Atlantic flight was canceled just moments before takeoff last week when an alarmed passenger said he spotted several screws missing from the plane’s wing.
While its likely true that the wing panel was both non-critical and secure, I'd be much more worried that if they missed something like that, that they could have missed any number of other things as well. Isn't there supposed to be some sort of check-list run?
Pilots perform an inspection of the aircraft before every flight. Missing fasteners on the top of the wing would not be visible during a walkaround from the ground.
Planes are allowed to fly with many parts missing. A few missing fasteners on a non structural part is fine, but missing fasteners that the pilots are unaware of is a big issue.
Shouldn't that inspection include looking at the top of the wing out the windows?
There isn’t much on top of the wing that is highly critical. Some planes you can’t even see the top from anywhere in the plane too. An actual issue like leaking fluids or damaged flight control surfaces are visible from the bottom. Something like a few missing fasteners really isn’t t that alarming. I’ve flown plenty of times with some missing, sometimes speed taped and sometimes both the first few times I asked the crew chief but eventually I became familiar with where and how many missing weren’t an issue.
How about heavy petting?
Does it lead to ducking?
Trouble. And seat wetting.
Only for transonic people.
#MachTuck
We're going to have to start walking around the plane with the pilot before takeoff like a rental car dent check.
I knew software companies were offloading QA testing onto their paying users, but who would have guessed that passengers would start playing that role too?
Some big wig had to go to target one day and saw the self checkout line and was like "I have an idea!"
In return, he had a conversation with a big wig from Target where he taught them how many checkout stations you could actually cram into a tiny space.
Early Access Airplane
Given how completely the airline industry disregards customer service and treats its customers like cattle, I don’t know why anyone would expect them to do a proper job of maintaining equipment. Furthermore, given how eager we are to gut regulation and dismantle the administrative state, all of this is going to just keep getting worse and worse.
"b-b-but taxes are theft!"
/s
They will scream as their plane that wasn’t regularly inspected by government bureaucrats plummets to the ground.
Noteable comments:
This feels like the beginning to Nightmare at 20000 Feet
New York Post is a right wing shitrag like The Daily Mail.
What do you think the implications of that are for this article reporting a completely non-political incident?
Probably that they generally don't care about getting a story right or corroborating sources. I agree that in this case that doesn't matter for getting the high level facts across.
They get traffic and unless someone comments otherwise, a slight boost in perceived respectability
Everything is political, at least with them.
The pilot should’ve walked out onto the wing, slapped a couple lengths of duct tape on that section, then carefully and loudly exclaimed; “ YUP! That baby ain’t goin’ anywhere.” while patting the area firmly.
It's called speed tape, and genuinely is a thing used in the industry.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_tape
you can't just screwdriver those things in there man you have to torque them in to the proper spec holy balls
I think they were checking how loose the others were rather than tightening them.
Well they are Phillips has so I can't imagine you can even torque them that much.
I imagine a lot of the passengers were pissed off when the flight was cancelled because one of their fellow passengers reported some non-critical bolts were missing.
It's not like the passenger knew they were non-critical. I certainly wouldn't have wanted him to stay silent only for it to turn out they were critical. They also wouldn't unboard and inspect a plane just on the insistence of one passenger, they'd deplane that one passenger if anything. The fact that they did do an additional inspection implies that safe or not, those missing bolts were not noticed in the initial inspection, which leads one to wondering if they missed anything else.
Precisely correct.
I'd have been grateful.
I think it's entirely reasonable to see something obviously missing on the wing of a plane, even something small, and wonder what else isn't properly secured. I'm sure a plane with four missing allen head screws on that panel is fine. I wouldn't fly on it without an assurance that it wasn't a sign of other poor practices.
First think I look for when I get a system in from a fabricator. Are all the screws on the outside tight and orientationed the same way? If so I am probably going to have a good day. Anybody who takes the effort on something so tiny often is taking the effort in things that do matter.
I would have been fine with not dying in the event it ended up being a real problem. An inconvenience is better to deal with than a plane crash.
Planes have so much redundency that theres a lot that's uncritical, until suddenly it is critical.
Ideas for a better world #233
Rename your phone hotspot to "I saw a loose bolt on the outside of the plane" and turn it on in the gate waiting area bar.
Hmm. Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
At some point, that part was taken off the plane and it was replaced, or maintenance was done on it, or maintenance was done on something underneath it. It was then replaced. There is a documentation trail that says all of this was fully completed. The documentation was signed off on by someone who was qualified in this task, and/ or by a supervisor who checked it off.
If there is no documentation, or if the documentation indicates something was done that was in fact not done, the CAA/ FAA is going to have a big problem with this. They are sort of interested in how maintenance is done and documented. If they didn't do this right, what else are they/ have they been "pencil whipping?"
I can see a pretty thorough inspection of their maintenance practices and documentation in the near future. If they find a pattern of this, the maintenance gets decertified and the airline can't fly until they are cleared.
TL;DR Someone dun goofed
There's a massive failure in maintenance and Operations' culture here. This isn't the exact sort of situation where you'd use LOTO, but you need something similar. Lock the engine in the off position until the removed part is properly reinstalled.
I want to call maintenance errors like this rookie... But they really aren't. There's plenty of plant incidents where people either don't have a proper procedure or don't follow it, and a welder tries to work on a live gas line. Or someone opens a valve without realizing it needs to be closed.
I still say we fine the companies and hold the CEOs personally responsible, because the buck stops there, and these mistakes are more likely to happen in an organization that doesn't have a robust safety culture.
So lucky they spotted it. Really makes you think, wouldn't it be good to implement a system of regular professional inspections to deal with stuff like that? /s
Regular Inspections fix small issues before greater problems arise from them --> some economist with no technical knowledge or common sense goes: hurp de durp our inspections never fix any relevant defects. Better cut back on them to be more economic. --> surprisedPikachu.jpeg
Well no. Those are the accountants. Economists have studied survivorship bias. It's the MBAs and accountants looking to cut costs that do that stupid shit.
Regular inspections are already mandate by the FAA, no economist, accountant or MBA has any say on it.
Speed holes
NY Post? Be serious, don't post that drama rag here.
Don't worry! There were 119 fasteners being used. Ignore the fact that 4 were missing. The plane was designed to use whatever number of fasteners we want. The amount is just a suggestion
/s
For what it's worth, just about every panel like this is certified to have a specific number of fasteners missing. A lot of the time there will be some other qualifiers such as not missing the leading fastener or not missing adjacent fasteners. Having a bunch in a row like this incident would probably not be ok, but I couldn't say without the maintenence manual.
Right, these are usually spec'd so that there's some leeway, and I don't believe they're lying when they say it would've been safe to fly. But after the recent plane debacles I don't blame those passengers to bringing it up.
It's just that if you know that it would be ok to miss a few and deliberately don't install them you're walking a very thin ice. It must be a reserve of fasteners, not a discount in fasteners used
Planes are designed to have very high tolerances so yeah, they have more fasteners than necessary for exactly this reason. Of course you still want to fix it, but they are absolutely designed to not need them all.
Stealing catalitic converters for moneyStealing bigass phillips screws from planes
--petty theift criminals
If Benny Hill wasn't playing in the background an opportunity was missed.
Seeing how disorganized and chaotic airports are, I'm not surprised.
I sympathise with the airline because it’s always a pain when you’ve nearly completed the flatpack before you realise that one screw is missing. Hopefully it’ll hold together without it.
Lol, "the Virgin Representative"
I would have been fine flying on that plane.
Highly unlikely that panel was critical to keeping the plane in the air even if it did come off during flight.
You don’t think it’s possible that missing bolts in a non critical part of the plane is reflective of poor inspection and maintenance and that would increase the risk of missing or loose bolts in, say, a door?
Yep, any number of reasons why it could have been left like that.
I’ve been on planes where I’ve seen duct tape on the wings, it’s really not an issue other than psychological.
You didn’t answer the question.
As in, do I think it means there are poor inspection practices?
No it isn’t indicative of this. Planes fly with things wrong with them every single day.
There is every chance that the maintenance crew notified people of this - it was signed off as still being airworthy and the whole reason this was an issue is actually because PR not a risk to safety.
Okay whatever you have to tell yourself bra. If this were not a concern they would have FLOWN THE PLANE and not grounded it out of safety concern. lol.
In the end I recognize that I am not the expert on these matters in any way. I have no idea what a properly maintained aircraft looks like and pretty much have to trust the people who are paid to know these things. If you're uncomfortable with something, by all means mention it, but it's folly to assume you know better or can make even decent assumptions about the maintenance of a plane unless you are an aircraft mechanic.
You didn't really answer or address my question. If you walk into a restaurant and see a rat running by table #2, do you just assume that "the restaurant experts" know better than you and it is safe to eat the food?
Is there a ginger twink in the kitchen?
By all means, if you are concerned about something on the plane, please mention it to a member of the flight crew.
That said, you've used a poor analogy.
There's a difference between understanding the significance of a rat in a restaurant and understanding the significance of some bolts missing from a piece of fuselage... which is the point of the comment you're glibly replying to.
Most people understand the concept of rats being harbingers of illness, but most people don't understand the finer mechanics of powered flight. We put our trust in the flight crew to have that greater understanding, that they won't put our OR their lives in danger by cutting corners. Chances are good that if the flight crew isn't concerned, you don't need to be either.
No but we do know the basic function of screws: holding shit together. The absence of screws implies that shit is not held together fully. Is it still sufficient to fly? Maybe. But the presence of screw holes implies that somebody in the development process thought them necessary and now they're not there.
Sure, it's likely safe in the same was that the restaurant rat is likely not carrying a plague. But it's not guaranteed and I'm not willing to be the one to test it
They why did they ground the plane if they weren't concerned? And then replace the bolts that you claim aren't necessary? Are they cosmetic bolts? lol.
I didn't say anything about that plane, and I didn't say anything about bolts being unnecessary. I was simply responding to the other guys bad analogy because he kept demanding someone answer his question.
Pretty sure "are all the bolts in their holes" is more of an "I can put IKEA furniture together pretty well" level and not "finer details of the mechanics of flight" level
Sure, this is why the passenger raised the issue to make sure someone responsible was aware of it and could make that safety judgement. And clearly they were right to do so if the pilot (or whoever) grounded the plane.
Panels coming off during flight is still not ideal, even if they're not critical to flying. They can hit things that are more essential.
The chances of that panel actually coming off are vanishingly small.
Yeah, it's like if a door would fall off a plane in the course of a flight, very unlikely
Touché, although I’m assuming this is a different model of aircraft so not plagued by the same issues.
And what's the worst that can happen?
If we ignore the part of people dying and all.
ITT:
"We aren't the experts in planes and how they work."
Also
"Very unlikely this comes apart."
The reason I think that it’s unlikely to be problematic is because the experts quoted in the article said it’s unlikely to be problematic.
I also have a very small amount of knowledge on this and know that planes fly with missing parts/broken things all the time, just like how everything in our car isn’t working 100% of the time either but we still drive it.