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In a shocking incident, a plane took off from Stansted Airport in London to Florida with two missing windows and later returned to the Essex airport after a crew member detected the issue in the flight. The flight had 11 crew members and nine passengers when the incident took place on October 4. It was caused by high-powered lights which were used during a filming event, as per a report in the Independent.
As per the Air Accidents Investigation Branch, the incident could have resulted in “more serious consequences”. Upon examination, it was discovered that two of the cabin windowpanes were missing and the other two were misaligned. The only object occupying the empty space between the missing windowpanes was the scratch pane, a piece of plastic meant to keep passengers from touching the outer panes.
The aircraft was used by luxury travel business TCS World Travel, located in the United States, and was operated by Titan Airways.
According to a preliminary report, the event occurred the day after the plane was used for filming on the ground and strong lights were positioned near it to create the illusion of a sunrise. They flashed the lights on the aircraft’s right side for almost five and a half hours before moving to the left side for four hours. The lights were supposed to be placed no closer than 10 metres from the object being illuminated, according to the AAIB, but they were between six and nine metres from the damaged windows.
During the flight, all passengers sat in the middle of the aircraft. After takeoff and the deactivation of the seatbelt sign, a crew member approached the rear of the aircraft and observed that the seal surrounding one of the windows was “flapping,” according to the AAIB. He then informed others and it was decided to return to the airport, where it landed safely. It is to be noted that the plane had reached an altitude of 14,500 feet and as per the report “the cabin had remained pressurised normally.”
The government body also stated that the region around the missing or damaged windows revealed that the foam used to hold them in place had either melted or was missing and the windowpanes were “deformed and shrunken”.
