American Airlines canceled 50 flights Thursday and plans to cut around 40 more Friday so that it could fix the seats on 48 planes which were prone to coming off the floor mid-flight. "American has instructed mechanics to pay particular attention to the seat lock plunger mechanism that secures the seat to the aircraft floor," the airline said in a report by CNN, which adds that the process would take about two hours for each plane and that the airline seats that stay bolted on the floor will be standard on all of its airplanes by Saturday. American had told reporters on Wednesday that a faulty clamp was to blame for seats sliding around. Yesterday, though, CBS reports "officials offered a new explanation Thursday, saying that a combination of wear, poor design and even soda spilled into the tracks caused pins to pop out of the grooves." Seats coming off the airline the floor on spilt bloody mary mix? That's not really reassuring. American told CBS that it found loose seats on six of its airplanes, which reports that the FAA is still continuing a safety investigation. 

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Alexander Abad-Santos