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.

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[–] 35 points 2 years ago (2 children)

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.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago

    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.

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