The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating three separate wingtip collisions by Delta planes at the JFK airport in New York Tuesday and Wednesday.
The first accident, which occurred Tuesday at 7:12 p.m., involved Delta’s Boeing Co. 737 and American Airlines’ Boeing 757 plane.
Both aircrafts were setting to depart when the Delta jet’s left wing brushed American Airlines’ tail. The collision was described in the audio taping as a ‘big jolt.’
The incident reportedly caused slight damage to the American plane, while there were no injuries of passengers aboard either plane.
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating three separate wingtip collisions by Delta planes at the JFK airport in New York earlier this week
The repeated collisions happened Tuesday and Wednesday
‘The flight returned to the gate and passengers deplaned normally,’ Delta spokesman Michael Thomas said in a statement, according to Bloomberg.
‘Customers were accommodated on an alternate aircraft, and we’re sorry for the inconvenience to those customers.’
At 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, a Delta Connection regional aircraft, Endeavor Air, was arriving into the airport when its left wing collided into the right wing of a still Delta Connection plane, GoJet Airlines.
The planes underwent a mandatory maintenance evaluation before they were able to be operated safely again.
‘The safety of Delta’s customers and crew is always our top priority and the incident is being looked into,’ Thomas said.
The planes underwent a mandatory maintenance evaluation before being operated again
The third collision, which happened just moments after late Wednesday afternoon, involved a Delta MD-88 jet and an aircraft tug vehicle that was operating near the ramp.
Spokesman for the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, Joseph Pentangelo, said the truck driver was transferred to the hospital where he was treated for injuries. He was later released.
The severity of the driver’s injuries is unknown as well as his current condition.
The unusual mishaps come just weeks after an Air Canada plane at the San Francisco International Airport narrowly avoided colliding with several planes on the taxiway.
The plane made a round about in the area and landed safely on the adjacent runway — avoiding what could have been worst aviation calamites to date.
‘The safety of Delta’s customers and crew is always our top priority and the incident is being looked into,’ Delta spokesman Michael Thomas said
The National Transportation Safety Board oversees and investigates civil transportation accidents
Investigators say they discovered a ‘blind spot’ in the airport’s radar system causing the wayward flight to be detected several seconds later it should have been.
‘We’re talking less than a second from a disaster,’ Ross Aimer, a retired airline captain and CEO of Aero Consulting Experts, said, according to CBS.
‘It is an easy thing to do for mistaking a taxiway with a runway, especially on a dark night,’ Aimer added.
The aircraft was just 59 feet above ground and a few feet away from other plane tails on the taxiway the evening of July 7, before the pilots were able to redirect the plane.
Since the alarming incident, the Federal Aviation Administration announced its plans to modify radar systems more precisely to ensure aircrafts are detected over the taxiway.
Federal officials are imposing new rules on nighttime landings at San Francisco airport after a close call
File images released by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) show Air Canada flight 759 (ACA 759) attempting to land at the San Francisco International Airport on July 7, 2017