Holes found in transatlantic jet’s wing after landing in Dublin Airport

A TRANSATLANTIC jet that landed at Dublin Airport on Saturday was found to have damage, including holes in its left wing, which was only detected after the plane arrived in Dublin.

It has emerged that a tyre on the Air Transat Airbus A330-300 jet shredded on departure from Toronto and punched two holes in the jet’s left wing and caused damage to another area of the wing as well as to the flaps and undercarriage door.

Flight TS-232, which was carrying 314 passengers, arrived in Dublin at 11.28am on Saturday after an apparently uneventful flight.

However, shortly after landing damage was detected in several parts of the jet’s left wing, prompting an immediate inspection of the runway in Dublin amid fears the damage had occurred on landing there.

The Air Accident Investigation Unit (AAIU) of the Department of Transport was notified and sent an inspector to the airport.

Airport staff recovered one piece of rubber from the runway but quickly established, because the shred was cold, that the incident had not happened on landing.

It was later established that one of the aircraft’s tyres burst on take-off from Toronto and while the crew heard a noise, they thought it was a bird strike. The crew notified controllers at Toronto of what happened. However, as no errors appeared on their instruments, they continued their journey to Dublin.

The return flight to Toronto had to be cancelled while the incident was investigated and remedial repairs were carried out to the aircraft.

The plane was then flown to Shannon in the early hours of yesterday where it underwent further repair work.

Air Transat confirmed: “The thread of one tyre came off during take-off. This remained undetectable and undetected until arrival at the gate in Dublin. The flight operated and landed normally and safely. A wing under-panel was repaired and a landing gear door that was damaged has been replaced. The landing gear itself suffered no damage.”

More than 300 passengers who were due to travel on the return flight to Toronto were put up in hotels in Dublin.

The airline confirmed: “The passengers were accommodated in local hotels and were compensated financially for the unusual, long delay. We sent another A330 on Sunday and they arrived in Toronto on Monday morning at 5.29am (local time).”

The AAIU has said that any investigation of the matter will be conducted by the Canadian authorities but that they will pass on any information they have already gathered.