TOP COMMENTS FROM VIDEO BELOW
It’s okay if everyone dies. What matters is that aircraft was built by a an all female engineer team and piloted by a strong black woman. The important thing is that these people be “seen”
Ex airline tech here. They are Phillips Head aeronautical square slot screws. Control surfaces are rarely riveted as they need removing for service of the various hydraulic pumps and lines underneath. On that particular control surface which looks like a ‘ground spolier’ , you can have several missing before it’s considered a no-fly safety issue… However you should not have a muppet flapping around on the wing pissing around with it pre take off…
No matter what the manufacturer or the airline claims, per current regulations, a visual inspection of an aircraft’s exterior is a requirement prior to flight. However, commercial aircraft are seldom given an adequate “preflight” inspection due to their size.
The airline cancelled/postponed the flight and corrected the missing screws – right decision. I believe the mechanic removed an adjacent screw and tried it in one of the empty holes to determine if the female threads were stripped or not. Use of a manual screwdriver is the best choice for such work because it allows for tactile assessment of the condition of the screw fastener. Using a powered screwdriver could cause more problems and/or obscure the fault.