Wow, this should come under the heading MacGyver buys Airline. Just two weeks ago I was choking on a cup of coffee when I read that RyanAir had requested that Boeing replace two of the toilets on their fleet of overseas aircraft to make room for more seating. Well add this story from the Telegraph and you definitely will get a pucker factor of around 9.8!!!
A Ryanair plane carrying 200 passengers had to turn back after tape used to fix the pilot’s window came loose during the flight, it has been claimed.
By Sarah Rainey
7:50AM BST 24 Oct 2011
The flight, travelling from Stansted to Riga in Latvia, was aborted 20 minutes after takeoff when the tape came unstuck and started to make alarming noises, a passenger has said.
The tape had been fastened around the edges of the windscreen in the cockpit by ground crew shortly before take-off, he claims.
According to the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA), it was being used as an extra precaution to secure a new window seal on the plane.
Passenger Anthony Neal, 33, from Kent, said people on the flight were “terrified”.
He said the pilot told them there was “damage on the windscreen” and the flight would have to turn back.
“We were kept in the dark, and were terrified,” he told The Sun. “I could see guys taping in the windscreen with what looked like duct tape or gaffer tape.
“We were in the sky, then the pilot said due to damage on the windscreen, we were going to have to turn back.”
An image taken from the runway appears to show ground crew checking the tape on the cockpit window before the flight.
It is claimed that the tape became loose during the flight and caused the pilot to turn the plane around.
Ryanair insists that there was no danger to passengers or crew during the incident, during which normal procedures were followed.
A spokesman for the airline, run by Irish businessman Michael O’Leary, said: “We do not comment on routine technical issues.
“All Ryanair flights operate in accordance with approved safety standards.”
The IAA said it had completed its investigation into the incident.