LONDON — A Virgin Atlantic jet bound for New York was forced to turn around and return to London after the airline learned that one of the pilots had not completed a “final assessment flight” required by the company, multiple news outlets are reporting.
According to USA Today and CNN, the incident occurred Monday less than an hour after Flight VS3 left London’s Heathrow Airport. Employees discovered that the first officer, who had been with the company since 2017, never finished Virgin’s final flight test, the outlets reported. Because the captain, a 17-year veteran of the company, was not designated to train the other pilot, the flight turned around, officials said.
After returning to London, a new first officer joined the flight before it took off again, eventually arriving in New York about 2 1/2 hours late, according to the news outlets.
Although the original pilot pairing violated the company’s guidelines, it did not breach any U.K. aviation standards, the country’s Civil Aviation Authority said in a statement.
“Both pilots were suitably licensed and qualified to undertake the flight,” the statement read.
Virgin Atlantic echoed the sentiment in its own statement.
“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,” the company’s statement read, according to the news outlets.
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