.
Join Simon Calder’s mailing list for valuable travel tips and opportunities to save money.
Get Simon Calder’s Travel email
Two aircrafts collided at Boston Logan Airport while they were both on the ground being de-iced.
The left winglet of a JetBlue Flight 777 struck JetBlue Flight 551’s horizontal stabilizer around 6:40am on Thursday morning. The event happened in an area of the tarmac that the airline controls, the Federal Aviation Administration, which is investigating the incident, said.
The planes were en route to Las Vegas and Orlando.
Two airplanes, specifically Airbus 321s, were being de-iced on the tarmac when the incident occurred.
According to Jennifer Mehigan, spokesperson for the Massachusetts Port Authority, there were no injuries on either aircraft and both flights were ultimately cancelled.
The impact was described as “minimal” by her. Travelers on the affected flights were transferred to different planes.
A representative from JetBlue stated that the event resulted in harm to the winglet of one plane and the tail section of the other.
Both planes will undergo maintenance, causing flights to be operated by different aircraft.
“Our main focus at JetBlue is safety, and we will investigate to understand the cause and circumstances of this event,” stated the representative.
Mary Menna, a passenger on the flight from Las Vegas to the Super Bowl, reported to Boston’s WBZ NewsRadio that her plane experienced a minor collision.
She explained to the radio station that it was a minor collision, not a major one. She felt a slight impact, but it wasn’t severe. Everyone on the plane gasped and looked out the window when they realized how close they had come to the other plane. They could see that a part of the other plane’s wing had been torn off.
Menna explained that the airplane we were on sustained structural damage to our wing, but the wing remained intact. She also mentioned that it would not have been able to fly in its current condition.
Source: independent.co.uk