Joe Harker
A plane which took off from Stansted Airport made it off the ground with two windows missing after a filming event caused damage to the aircraft.
An investigation into how the Airbus A321, which had previously counted King Charles and Rishi Sunak among its passengers, had managed to take off without two of its windows found the reason for the damage.
The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) said the plane returned to the airport after a crew member discovered the rather glaring problem shortly after the flight.
Their inspection of the plane after it had landed again at Stansted found that two window panes were missing and another two were not in their proper position.
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For the windows missing their panes the only thing between the flight's cabin and the outside world was the thin plastic screen used to stop people from touching the actual window panes of the plane.
The AAIB said there could have been 'more serious consequences' to the missing windows on the plane.
The mishap occurred a day after the plane had been used for filming with strong lights set up around it to 'give the illusion of a sunrise'.
After investigating the plane it was found that the foam around the damaged windows had melted or was missing, with the panes of glass themselves 'deformed and shrunk'.
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According to the AAIB, the lights should have been no closer than 10 metres to the plane, but were between six and nine metres from the windows.
The lights spent five and a half hours shining on one side of the plane and four hours set up on the other side.
The aircraft, which was being operated by Titan Airways, had been carrying 11 crew members and nine passengers at the time the missing windows were discovered.
A crew member discovered shortly after take off that the seal around one of the windows was 'flapping' and reported the problem.
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It was decided that the plane, which had made it almost 15,000 feet into the air following take off, should return to the airport.
Fortunately, the AAIB investigation found that 'the cabin had remained pressurised normally'.
A report into the plane with the missing windows stated: "Whereas in this case the damage became apparent at around FL100 (10,000 feet) and the flight was concluded uneventfully, a different level of damage by the same means might have resulted in more serious consequences, especially if window integrity was lost at higher differential pressure."
LADbible has contacted Titan Airways for comment.