UK's Air Accident Investigation Branch Determines Film Crew's Lights Damaged A321 Windows
UK's Air Accident Investigation Branch Determines Film Crew's Lights Damaged A321 Windows
The UK AAIB says high-powered film lights caused damaged to the windows of the Titan Airways A321neo G-OATW.
TL;DR: The high temperatures from the film crew's halogen lamps caused the acrylic windows to deform and melted seals around the windows. On a repositioning flight the next day without passengers a loadmaster noticed a dramatic increase in cabin noise and found a dislodged window pane. The aircraft stopped climbing and returned to Stansted where 4 windows were found damaged, with two missing panes entirely and the horizontal stabilizer showing signs of impact from at least one pane.
Ok, so a real problem but minor, contained, no injuries, no fatalities. Clearly attributable to a cause outside of the anticipated usage design/specification. Passenger cabin remained safe and pressurised throughout. Unlike say a comparable component used to seal an aperture on a passenger airliner getting installed without fastenings and suddenly absenting itself mid flight with potentially catastrophic consequences.
Yeah, this is solidly in the, "that's really weird and unexpected but the design managed it" category, not the gross negligence category. This might result in some changes if aircraft are used in film production, like special inspections after filming or using different lights, or encourage more use of replica sets instead of actual aircraft, but I don't think it would lead to any design changes for the aircraft themselves.