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Penticton  

Bolt flies off plane, cracks glass

What is typically a quick and quiet flight from Penticton to Vancouver came with an unwelcome dose of excitement on Tuesday.

An Air Canada Jazz flight was apparently descending into Vancouver when a bolt flew off of the propeller and lodged into the outer pane of glass in a passenger cabin window. 

Two days ago a Reddit user named Skips_Legday said, "So about halfway through my flight I heard a loud POP, looked out my window at a bolt that flew off the prop and broke through the outer pane."

Adding more information to the comments below the post, the user stated "I had to stay behind and talk to the pilot, it's called a spinner bolt and there's 12 of them."

"[The pilot] said he hasn't seen or heard of this happening in 25 years of flying, same with the flight crew. He also told me that this fleet of planes is about 20 years old, which is considered their half-life for use in commercial air travel. A Dash 8 I believe."

Air Canada Jazz issued the following statement to Castanet:

"There are twelve 1-inch (2.5 cm) bolts on a 'prop spinner' on this particular type of aircraft (Dash 8 #300).  

While on descent into Vancouver, BC on Nov. 25/14, (from Penticton, BC) flight #8353 had one of those twelve 1- inch (2.5 cm) bolts come loose and strike one of the aircraft windows.  

The bolt struck the exterior pane (of two acrylic window panes) which resulted in a small hole in the exterior window pane - the interior pane was not impacted.  

There was no emergency declared and the aircraft landed safely and without incident. 

This is a highly unusual incident and our maintenance personnel in Vancouver have inspected the aircraft and are making the necessary repairs. 

We do apologize to our passengers for any concern that this incident may have caused."

This incident comes three weeks after an Air Canada Express flight from Calgary to Grand Prairie was forced to make an emergency landing in Edmonton, injuring several people on board.  



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