JetBlue planes clip one another at Boston Logan Airport
Written by ABC AUDIO ALL RIGHTS RESERVED on February 8, 2024
(BOSTON) — Two JetBlue planes clipped each other Thursday morning while on a deicing pad at Boston Logan International Airport.
The incident occurred when the two planes were on adjacent deicing pad lanes, JetBlue said in a statement. According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the left winglet of JetBlue flight 777, an Airbus A321neo, struck the right horizontal stabilizer of JetBlue flight 551, which was an Airbus A321.
The impact damaged one aircraft’s winglet and the other plane’s tail section, according to JetBlue.
The FAA said the event happened on an area of the tarmac that is controlled by the airline. The agency will investigate the incident.
The incident occurred around 6:40 a.m. ET, according to the FAA and the flight tracking website FlightRadar24.
JetBlue said no injuries were reported by passengers or crew on either aircraft.
“We were hit by another aircraft,” the pilot of JetBlue flight 551 said on air traffic control audio, obtained through LiveATC.net.
A pilot of a nearby plane, who witnessed the event, told air traffic control: “We saw two aircrafts hit the tail and the wing.”
Dave Sauter was a passenger on JetBlue flight 777, headed to Las Vegas.
“You felt the brake when they stopped; you didn’t feel the collision,” he told ABC News. “It was too minor with that amount of weight moving.”
He said that the passengers weren’t scared, but frustrated.
JetBlue said both aircraft will be taken out of service for repairs and the two flights will operate on other planes. JetBlue 777 was scheduled to go to Las Vegas and JetBlue 551 to Orlando.
“Safety is JetBlue’s priority, and we will work to determine how and why this incident occurred,” JetBlue said in a statement following the incident.
Boston Logan has seen other wing clip incidents over the past 12 months. Last March, two United planes clipped wings while one was pushing back from the gate. And in June, a United plane’s wing clipped the tail of a Delta plane while the United flight was taxiing to a holding pad.
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