A Virgin Atlantic aircraft was forced to return to London's Heathrow airport less than an hour into a flight to New York after one of its pilots was found to not have completed their training. According to The Guardian, the Airbus A330 jet was around 40 minutes into its journey to the United States on Monday when the two pilots on board became aware of the “rostering error”, the airline stated.
Virgin Atlantic apologised to passengers for the delay of almost three hours to the scheduled arrival time. Flight VS3 had reached the skies above Ireland before returning to London's Heathrow airport, touching down more than one-and-a-half hours after it took off. The Guardian reported that a replacement for the first officer was found, following which the plane departed again for New York.
Notably, control of an aircraft is usually shared between a first officer and the captain, but the latter holds ultimate responsibility for what happens on a flight.
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In a statement, the airlines insisted that the safety of the passengers was not compromised. Separately, a spokesperson of the airline told the media outlet that the qualified first officer, who was flying alongside an experienced captain, was replaced with a new pilot to ensure full compliance with Virgin Atlantic's training protocols, which exceed industry standards.
“We apologise for any inconvenience caused to our customers, who arrived two hours and 40 minutes later than scheduled as a result of the crew change,” the spokesperson added as per Guardian.
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It is to mention that the initial first officer reportedly joined the carrier in 2017. He was fully qualified under UK aviation regulations but had not completed a final assessment flight which is part of the airline's internal requirements. Therefore, flight VS3 turned back as the captain had not been designated as a trainer.
