A Virgin Atlantic flight heading to San Francisco had to change its course after the windscreen cracked mid-flight at an altitude of 40,000 feet. The Boeing 787-9 aircraft experienced “damage to the outer layer of the cockpit windscreen” approximately three hours after departing from London’s Heathrow Airport, according to the company.
The incident happened when the plane turned around between Greenland and Iceland, according to NY Post. The temperature outside was -58 degrees. Passengers flew to San Francisco the next day with no injuries reported.
While the cause behind the damage to the May 27 flight was not clear, a spokesperson for Virgin Atlantic said that the aircraft’s VS41’s glass, “made of multiple layers,” was “partly cracked.” The spokesperson added that it was a “non-structural, wear-resistant layer.”
Following the mid-air scare, the airline assured that “at no point was the safety of the aircraft, our customers, or our cabin crew compromised.”
The statement continued, “The Captain made the decision to return to Heathrow, where we had the replacement parts and tooling in place to fix the issue and avoid further impact to our customers and our schedules.”
The airline added, “We always work well above industry safety standards and the aircraft was back in service within 24 hours of the event. We’d like to apologize to the customers involved, for the delay to their journeys.”
The incident occurs amidst a series of mishaps involving Boeing. On Wednesday, a Southwest Airlines Boeing 787 plane set off altitude alarms during its landing in Oklahoma City, flying less than 500 feet above a residential neighborhood. A similar event happened a month ago when another Southwest aircraft heading to Hawaii descended to just 400 feet above the Pacific Ocean.