Incident of the week #10

Sometimes it only takes one single passenger to cause panic onboard, and make 24 fellow passengers to leave an aircraft.

This happened this week, on a Transaero flight from Moscow to Krasnoyarsk. Everyone was onboard when, as the aircraft began taxiing towards the runway, a passenger spotted a "hole" in the wing. He immediately informed the crew, who thanked him for his vigilance but after inspecting it, the pilots decided the aircraft was safe to fly - the problem was that a panel was missing from the wing. Nevertheless, the situation made some passengers nervous and they demanded they be let off the airplane. After two hours of arguing, they were finally given permission to disembark the Boeing 737 and although they received a refund for the tickets, they ended up being fined by the airline, as the situation was not deemed an emergency. The plane took later on off without those 24 passengers and landed safely with the brave other 43 passengers in Krasnoyarsk, but now with a 3-hour delay.