The lights of a film set “shot” on the side of an Airbus A321neo blew out the external glass of two windows, ruined the seal of a third, while a fourth protruded from the fuselage. The fact was only realized when the plane – which took off from London Stansted airport and headed to Orlando, Florida – was at around 10 thousand feet above sea level (just over three thousand metres) and some of the travelers complained about temperatures very low and a racket in the cabin. The aircraft then returned where the English and French authorities opened an investigation.
– Travel
It all happened last October 4th just before noon local time. And a month later the English investigative authority Air accidents investigation branch issued a special bulletin of about ten pages to report the risk on windows when they are exposed to powerful lights for a few hours. On board the flight – which was not a scheduled connection – there were three pilots, an engineer, a load manager, six flight attendants and nine classified as “passengers” even though they were employees of the tour operator who had chartered the jet.
The departure and the noise
According to the preliminary investigation, the plane took off on runway 22 of Stansted airport, one of London’s main airports. Immediately after leaving the tarmac “several passengers recalled that the plane cabin seemed noisier and colder than usual.” At an altitude of 10 thousand feet the pilots turned off the seat belt sign and it was at that point that one of the travelers went to the rear of the aircraft where the noise gradually increased. Looking to the left he noticed “that the window seal was swinging in the air flow and the window glass seemed to have slipped downwards”.
– The lights of the film set near the plane (Aaib photo) The return
At that point the pilots decided to reduce the altitude and ask to return to Stansted. Even if – as the bulletin recalls in the reconstruction – the pressurization in the cabin remained regular and no warning lights came on to signal problems. The Airbus A321neo – which belongs to the Titan Airways company and previously flew for the British government – touched the runway at 11.51 local time (12.51 in Italy), after being at altitude for 36 minutes, reaching a maximum of 4,421 metres.
The investigation
How could a new plane — less than three years old — end up losing its windows like that? British investigators discovered that the day before the flight “the aircraft had been used for ground filming, during which external lights had been shone through the cabin windows to give the illusion of a sunrise.” «The lights – we read again – were turned on for the first time on the right side of the aircraft for approximately five and a half hours», then «were then moved to the left side, where they illuminated a similar area on the left side for about four hours.”
– One of the damaged windows and the front page of the British detective agency’s bulletin “Lights too close”
A subsequent check revealed that the lights had been positioned at a distance between 6.1 and 9.1 meters from the fuselage, but among the technical characteristics we read that these had to be placed at a minimum distance of 10 meters. The windows “appear to have suffered thermal damage and distortion from high temperatures while illuminated for approximately four to five and a half hours during filming the day before the flight,” investigators report. “In this case – they conclude – the damage occurred at around 10 thousand meters and the flight ended without problems, but at a different altitude the damage could have had more serious consequences”.
2023-11-09 15:33:14
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