This is a beautiful story about an airplane, for a change. And by ‘beautiful’ I mean it’s a bit funny and no one died.

A brand new Virgin Atlantic Airbus A330-300 plane landed in Manchester from Atlanta, Georgia yesterday, and it was decided to give the new bird, named Beauty Queen, a water canon salute. Which was deemed a great idea, until the person in control of the water canon pressed the ‘foam’ button instead of the water button.

Thick, fire-suppressing foam then blocked its brand new systems and Beauty Queen had to be grounded and given a full once over by engineers. Her next flight out had to be cancelled, meaning 252 passengers had to wait for another flight.

It seems pilots are enjoying more and more the meet and greet of passengers – this pilot and a few members of the crew “came round to the gate on a goodwill mission. He [the pilot] explained that the plane was being given a water canon salute on the tarmac”, says one passenger.

Unfortunately someone had pressed the button for foam, instead of water. It clogged up the engines with foam. Foam got into the engines.

That’s so embarrassing. I wonder what the hosepipe controller has to say for himself?

A statement from Virgin (all whilst insisting the flight was delayed and not cancelled):

We needed to give the aircraft a thorough check over. The initial delay was whilst our teams carried out the inspection. It was then delayed overnight as the crew ran out of hours. Our crew are legally required a minimum rest time between flights.

The airline also served the delayed passengers cupcakes and glasses of prosecco.

Here’s hoping those 252 passengers are not too disgruntled to fly today.

[Source: Metro]