Airplane delay averted by passenger

Usually when an airplane crew is in need of help the call goes out to see if there is a doctor on board. For the passengers and crew of a Thomas Cook flight from Menorca however it wasn’t a doctor they were in need of but rather an airplane engineer.

The holidaymakers were advised that unfortunately they would be experiencing an eight delay of their flight due to a mechanical problem. It seems that the problem required that an engineer had to be flown out from the UK in order to fix it. This was the point when one of the passengers identified themselves as an airplane engineer who was more than qualified to fix the problem.

A spokeswoman for Thomas Cook said the company followed strict procedures to ensure the man was qualified to work on the aircraft, a Boeing 757-200, during the incident on Saturday.

The passenger worked for another airline, Thomsonfly, which has a reciprocal maintenance agreement with Thomas Cook.

“When they announced there was a technical problem he came forward and said who he was, ” she said.

“We checked his licence and verified he was who he said he was, and he was able to fix the problem to avoid the delay.

Source: BBC ::Passenger fixes faulty airliner

Needless to say his fellow passengers where very happy especially since they arrived at their destination only 35 minutes late.

image courtesy of BBC