NEW YORK (AP) — Two Delta Air Lines regional jets collided on the taxiway at LaGuardia Airport in New York, injuring a flight attendant, damaging a cockpit and tearing off part of a wing in what the airline described as a “low-speed collision.”
An aircraft carrying 32 people was preparing for takeoff Wednesday night to Roanoke, Virginia, when its wing hit the fuselage of an aircraft arriving from Charlotte, North Carolina, with 61 people aboard, according to a statement from Delta.
A flight attendant had non-life threatening injuries and was taken to a hospital, according a statement from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. There were no reports of passengers injured, the airline said.
“Their right wing clipped our nose and the cockpit we have damage to our windscreen and … some of our screens in here,” a pilot said, according to air traffic control audio. Images of the damage showed the broken wing on one plane while other plane’s cockpit window was shattered and its nose cone was deeply gouged in several places.
The plane that had landed “stopped, jerked, and jumped to the right,” passenger William Lusk told ABC. “Everyone went dead silent. And as everyone went dead silent, the pilot calmly came on and said, ‘Hey, we’ve been in a crash, everyone remain calm.'”
Other airport operations were not expected to be affected, according to Delta.
“Delta will work with all relevant authorities to review what occurred as safety of our customers and people comes before all else,” the statement from Delta said. “We apologize to our customers for the experience.”
The Delta Connection aircraft involved in the collision are operated by Endeavor Air. Both are CRJ-900 planes, said the Federal Aviation Administration, which is investigating. The planes can seat 70 to 90 passengers.
LaGuardia Airport is one of 35 major airports where the FAA has installed advanced surface radar systems that help track aircraft and vehicles on the ground and alert controllers to potential conflicts. It wasn’t clear what role the system played in this collision.
Close calls like this can add to worries about aviation safety in the wake of the deadliest plane crash in the United States in decades, when an airliner collided with an Army helicopter, and other recent crashes and near misses.