An American Airlines Airbus A321-200, registration N198UW performing flight AA-1642 from Detroit,MI to Charlotte,NC (USA), departed Detroit's runway 22L and completed the flight with a seemingly uneventful landing on Charlotte's runway 36L about 85 minutes after departure.
A post flight inspection revealed however that a rivet/screw of a slat was missing from the aircraft.
On Aug 11th 2020 the airline's press department confirmed a rivet/screw was missing, the slat however was present. The aircraft was taken out of service due to an unrelated issue.
A years long proven source had initially reported the whole slat was missing.
The Aviation Herald queried the airline: "Can you please explain, why the public delay report for the aircraft reads: '19MINS MTX OUTBOUND CODE MT1. ORIG.AC. 198...SLAT MISSING...ETR SET/BUMP...CHANGE TO AC 199...B7/B12' Who entered that comment and why?"
The airline's press department responded, they had seen the photo, just one rivet missing, they declined to provide the photo and answered our query: "That line is not in our TechOps system. That was a line written by someone who was swapping aircraft ..."
About 4 hours later the airline reported a rivet in the right hand inboard slat and sent the photos of the slat (see below). The airline stated after verification, the public delay report had been done in error.
The aircraft was unable to continue its schedule and is still on the ground in Charlotte about 32 hours after landing.