A United Airlines plane heading for its gate clipped the tail of another United aircraft at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, authorities said.
No one was hurt in Friday’s incident, and the 113 passengers on flight 2652 from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, were able to leave the plane normally after a delay, United officials said in a statement.
Runway collisions like these could add to worries about aviation safety in the wake of recent crashes and near misses – including the deadliest plane crash in the United States in decades, when an army helicopter collided with an airliner preparing to land at Ronald Reagan Washington National airport in January.
Earlier in October, two Delta Air Lines regional jets collided at the intersection of taxiways at LaGuardia airport in New York, injuring a flight attendant.
In Friday’s case, the second United plane had its horizontal stabilizer struck and was not moving when the planes hit, officials said.
Bill Marcus, a passenger on the flight from Wyoming, said he didn’t even realize anything happened until the pilot said there would be a delay to document something and passengers on the plane saw a number of people gather around the right wing.
“I was shocked that I didn’t feel something more, although when they separated the planes there was some shuddering,” Marcus told CBS News Chicago. It took about 40 extra minutes for the plane to get to the gate, he said.
