A New York-bound Virgin Atlantic flight was canceled last week after a passenger noticed part of the aircraft’s wing was missing.
The Airbus A330 plane was supposed to depart from Manchester, England.
Moments before takeoff, the passenger noticed something was wrong with the bolts on the wing.
The Manchester Evening News reports, "The VS127 flight, to John F Kennedy International Airport, was stopped from taking off on Monday (January 15) to give engineers time to carry out 'maintenance checks' and inspections on the aircraft after it was discovered the tops of four fasteners were missing from a panel on the wing."
The report added, "It is understood that each of the wing panels on the Airbus A330 has 119 fasteners, and that the four tops that were missing 'did not impact the structural integrity of the wing, the load capability of the wing or the ability of the aircraft to operate safely.'"
The panels, according to the report, only improve the aerodynamic performance of the aircraft.
"The panel in the image is a secondary structure panel, used to improve the aerodynamic performance of the aircraft," Neil Firth, an Airbus local chief wing engineer for the A330, said in a statement obtained by Fox News. "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."
A Virgin Atlantic spokesperson told FOX Business that the airline canceled the flight "to provide time for precautionary additional engineering checks, which allowed our team the maximum time to complete their inspections."
Workers have since installed four new fasteners.
"The safety of our customers and crew is always our top priority and this was not compromised at any point," Virgin Atlantic told FOX Business. "We always work well above industry safety standards and the aircraft is now back in service."
