I used to be insanely afraid of flying; white knuckled, finger nails digging into the armrest scared. But, Jenny helped me get over it. Mainly by making me fly a lot. Lately though, with all the news about the 737 Max planes and engines exploding or catching on fire and more…….. I might be kind of scared again.
Last week, a flight scheduled to leave England and arrive in New York City, which is 8 hours in the air, cancelled literally minutes before takeoff because a passenger……… not a mechanic, not anyone at the airport……. A passenger noticed that a panel on one of
the wings was missing four bolts. All passengers were put on other flights while mechanics checked it out. Then, the airline reported that without the bolts, it would have still been safe to fly.
They did get around to replacing the bolts and started flying the plane again. But, I feel like they took an almost blasé attitude towards it. “Yeah, those things that hold the wings together. Don’t worry. They’re mostly for looks. I’m not supposed to tell you, but planes actually work using magic. We don’t even need wings.”
By the way, this incident happened with a Virgin Airways plane and is the 2nd within a week of each other. On January 7th, a Virgin Airways plane had to return after smoke started filling up the cabin.