Memoirs from the Orange Army

The Hole In The Wing

The hole in the wing draft chapter

It had already been a difficult day. I had almost turned up more than twenty five minutes late after my taxi driver hadn't shown up giving me a mere few minutes to dash through the airport and security. After frantically scooping up my belongings from the trays, I proceeded to the crew roman scanned the room for the briefing table displaying the Vienna flight I was due to operate. I hurried across and dumped my possessions and printed out all the information I needed for todays flight. It was only then when I discovered the plane was delayed. It was going to be around thirty minutes late inbound because of restrictions across France due to industrial strike action. This was one of many strikes that the French were undertaking because of disputes over their working conditions and pay.

We briefed as usual and then discussed what to do to fill the time and quickly decided a pit stop at Pret A Manger would suffice. We made the long journey across the sky bridge and chose to sit in some seats behind the eatery away from the view of passengers. We idly chatted away exchanging the usual pleasantries and discovering what we all before deciding to plunge ourselves into this chaotic, fast-paced industry whilst sipping coffees. When the aircraft eventually arrived, we made our way over to it to begin the crew handover and prepared it for boarding.

The flight over to Vienna was uneventful as usual. It is a key business route which meant nobody really wanted much. It was simply a few servings of beverages and a snack or two for the business customers who hadn't stopped all day to eat or drink something. Practically everyone had buried their heads into laptops and tablets toiling away to try and meet deadlines for meetings and projects they all had approaching. It was approximately halfway through the flight when things changed. The aircraft began to vibrate. It was barely noticeable at first and it took us a a minute or two to actually realised what was happening. Many of the passengers had also realised the aircraft was gently vibrating. The crew glanced at each other in the back galley and exchanged looks of concern about this sudden problem. The Cabin manager decided it was best to speak to the flight deck and summoned one of the crew to follow them to the front in order to guard them into the flight deck. Some of the passengers along the way had stopped the crew along their way through the cabin enquiring about the sudden gentle vibrations we were experiencing.

One of the crew had tried to be rational and blamed it on multiple waves of wake turbulence since we were crossing the alps at this point even though they clearly knew this was not the case. It became apparent there were increasing amounts of customers who were becoming aware of the vibrations as headphones and eye masks were being removed to see what was going on around them and noticed the crew had gone from their usual humour and smiles, which had long disappeared, and were replaced instead with serious and slightly concerned expressions.

The Captain was aware of the situation too but was confused as to what could be wrong because there had been no indications or alarms in the flight deck to suggest otherwise. By this point, we were quite close to Vienna and they decided to continue to our destination rather than divert to somewhere else. The cabin manager reassured us all and informed us of the Captains decision to continue to Vienna. We were all quietly relieved to land into Vienna safely and were very eager to speak to the flight deck about this unusual phenomenon that had just happened inflight and what it could have been.

Once the last passenger had disembarked, the captain called all the crew to the front for a quick chat. His face was serious and he had his company mobile phone in his hand which meant he had already been speaking to operations control. The crew approached with an eagerly inquisitive look mixed with a sliver of apprehension. The captain told us there was a chance we wouldn't be going anywhere tonight as the aircraft had suffered a technical fault inflight which he asked if we had noticed. The crew were eager to know the fault and talked across each other trying to describe their experience of the situation in the cabin once the vibrations had started. *********************

The captain then informed us about the loose panel in the left wing and how a hole had appeared inflight. It wasn't drastically large but it was large enough to create a minor disruption to the airflow which explained why the aircraft was vibrating.

Our captain had been constantly making and receiving messages and phone calls to Operations and Management to discuss the situation and everything was being managed frantically at Luton HQ. The aircraft was still needed at Gatwick later, It was due to be used for a flight to Nice with another crew. We had all expressed our concerns about the aircraft being used again as the defect was noticeable to passengers.

Luton HQ however were busy trying to arrange a certification to allow the aircraft to return to its homebase in order to be fixed. Clearly unsure of how to take this news, the crew continued to prepare the cabin for departure back to Gatwick. In the meantime, the captain was venturing in and out of the aircraft whilst on the phone to Operations and discussing potential further options of what to do.

During his walkaround and discovering the hole, the captain noticed a loose panel. After discussing it with with operations, they previously known about by asking if the panel was still present. Since the loose panel inside was still actually present, the aircraft was able to obtain its certification to fly home. We were all slightly uneasy about having to do this, especially with passengers onboard but the choice had been made for us and we were going home.

The aircraft vibrated for the entire flight home which raised multiple concerns from passengers. We had to reassure them despite knowing the real truth of what happened. The problem was that many of our passengers were business passengers who flew with us daily, sometimes even more than we did and therefore knew when something wasn't right so they weren't easily convinced and they knew we were lying.

We eventually arrived back to Gatwick after what seemed like an eternity and discovered this aircraft was still flying out to Nice straight after our flight despite being heavily delayed and with the problematic airframe. We informed the next crew during our handover of what had happened during the flight and what they could expect if they were to continue using this aircraft. The next crew were visibly as concerned as we were and were very reluctant to continue using the aircraft so much so the new captain immediately got straight onto the phone to Operations to ask for another aircraft.

I never actually knew what happened after that, we had left them to argue with the company about their safety and wellbeing whilst we headed home to be with our loved ones. I'll never know if they were made to continue flying that aircraft but nonetheless a strict lesson was learnt that day. We learned that sometimes we needed to fight Orange HQ when it came to safety as those in the office barely knew anything about the harsh reality of life onboard and when we felt our safety was compromised. They were cosily tucked away in some warm part of the big orange hangar where their only touch with the outside world was on the computer screens in front of them.

I simply must implore to you that as an airline we really do take safety incredibly seriously. We have cancelled flights, evacuated and called security over the most trivial things but every occasion is treated individually. It just so happens that there is the occasional incident that slips through the net and it takes quite a bit of convincing the company to get things sorted. It is for this reason that communication is extremely vital to our industry. We could never survive in this industry without it. That and an unfathomable amount of patience.

"Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish" - John Quincy Adams.