Quite so.

Interesting to see that the Daily Mail and Daily Express - neither of which normally worry much about accuracy - both take care to point out that the LD3 story is an unconfirmed report (without identifying AvHerald as the source).

Virgin Atlantic passengers in narrow escape after plane hits debris washed onto runway during Caribbean storm | Mail Online

Terror as Virgin jet avoids disaster landing on FLOODED runway in dark, storm-hit St Lucia | World | News | Daily Express

davereid

i can assure you the airfield was dumped on by a massive flood on VS's touchdown with associated muck/mess/mire/mayhem - my pal was c/c o/b
it was a right mess

and that's all you are getting i'm afraid

There 'may' have been more than one LD3.

Got to love the express / daily heil whenever there is an incident the words 'terror, jet, plunge, horror, narrowly avoided, screaming' all seem to crop up. I'm sure there will be pics in the AAIB report when its released, maybe even some hard facts!

St Lucia
 

Hello all,

I was in the terminal when this incident happened. I saw some of the damage firsthand the next day but we were shooed away when we got our cameras out.

The ground floor of the airport flooded almost the exact second the Virgin plane landed.

At daylight the next morning, there were LD3s all over one end of the runway, about 30 of them.

I "heard" that when the Virgin plane came in, that the tower could not see the runway visibility was so poor. Hard to believe, I know.


Here is a video I took from a helicopter flying into UVF a few days later:

https://vimeo.com/84353238

You can see the Virgin A330, LD3s and a lot of the dirt/silt that was all over the runway and taxiways.

I don't think this was an isolated incident: I can remember having to abandon a Barbados - St Lucia sector just before descent when the airfield was closed due sudden massive flooding with "dead livestock (is that an oxymoron?) and debris all over the runway."

I am in Saint Lucia now and the Virgin aircraft is still parked up at UVF. That would seem to contradict the idea of minimal damage as having the frame out of production must be costing a pretty penny.

As seen on the picture , the honeycomb panels look in bad shape .
No airline has such spares .
Even Airbus may have only supplies to assemble the planes .
Has to be manufactured especially for this a/c

Anybody know if Virgin have sub-chartered to cover the A330, or are they managing with what they have got?

Interested to know as I am going to Tobago on the A330 in March!

subcharters
 

nothing brought in afaik

Nothing bought in to my knowledge, and a little dicky bird tells me the a/c is returning from UVF tomorrow!

A ferry flight with temporary fairings/patches over the holes I presume?

Duct tape is amazing stuff.

I assume in practice it's a riveted plate with a bit of adhesive to seal it better. From what's been said, I assume it's not part of the pressurised structure and so they're not going to be sticking to FL100 or using oxygen?

Well it's airborne as VIR816P. It should be in the UK around 0500z.

I stuffed VIR816P into Flightaware and it told me it landed nine years ago. Hmmmm...

Works without the P on the end though. About to land.

Almost one month at UVF then back to base and re-started flying after 3 days .
I believe totally repaired without tape ... :) (removed ? as not really a question )

Went to Mumbai and back yesterday, so back in service.

That answer your question?

For all we know, it may have been repaired in St Lucia.

It was fixed in UVF. A team of engineers have been down there since it happened. All fixed and back in service.

Good job done by all. :D