I can only imagine the sinking feeling the captain experienced when an American Airlines Boeing 737-800 bound for the Bahamas instead bound into a lamp post at DFW, severely damaging the wing and rendering the aircraft inoperable.
American Airlines 737-800 Wing Clips Lamp Post At DFW
American Airlines flight 1005 was set to take off from Dallas – Fort Worth (DFW) to Nassau (NAS) on May 28th when it hit a detour during ground taxi out of the gate.
The incident was captured on video and widely shared on Twitter over the weekend:
2021-05-28: American Airlines Boeing 737-800 (N834AA, built 2010) took significant wing damage when it struck a lampost during taxi-out at Dallas-DFW Intl AP (KDFW), TX on flight #AA1005 to Nassau. @AndySlater pic.twitter.com/iMpCROuIxf
— JACDEC (@JacdecNew) May 31, 2021
Look at this damage:
Further images:https://t.co/HZDhDQQciI
— JACDEC (@JacdecNew) May 31, 2021
Thankfully, no one was hurt onboard the aircraft or on the ground. But N834AA, built in 2010, sustained heavy damage.
The flight originally pushed back at 3:42pm, nearly three hours behind the scheduled departure of 12:46pm. Perhaps the delay made the pilot impatient? After the incident, passengers disembarked, a new aircraft was found (this time an Airbus A321), and the flight took off again. The replacement aircraft did not take off until 9:43pm, arriving into Nassau at 1:15am.
CONCLUSION
It appears the pilot mistook the taxiway edge line for centerline when leaving the gate. If the co-pilot was busy completing pre-flight checklists, the issue was likely overlooked by both…until it was too late. But if there is any sliver of good news, it is that no one was injured.
Sort of off topic, but have you ever considered ditching that creepy, outdated photo background that accompanies your Boarding Area daily posts? (Older woman serving you something, you just staring ahead, not acknowledging her presence). I get that it’s meant to be goofy, but I bet I’m not the only female who cringes at it.
I was on a EVA 777 window seat and saw our plane plow through two light poles as we taxi toward active runway. Luckily ATC also noticed and notified pilot for immediate stop. Nearly 2hrs on plane watching fire rescue untangle wiring and lamp from wing. Evacuate near runway. Took 6 weeks repair at YYZ.
N834AA looks like a 787
Love the reaction from the ramp agent in the foreground!
Classic texting and driving.
How about a little color on what is likely to happen to the pilot? Will he or she be suspended pending an investigation or did the same pilot fly this flight on the replacement aircraft? Could this be grounds for termination? Perhaps a question for “Ask the Pilot”…
It’s N834NN.
Karma!,
I swear officer, it just jumped out in front of me!
“Look at this damage:” You probably meant to include a DIFFERENT Twitter post than the first one you embedded earlier.
non duties and eyes open are hammered in during training during ramp ops. The airport authority is very poor at keeping lines painted. It has taken them 8 years just to redo one taxiway 3x. So drug testing, off schedule, retraining and evaluation and has to cover damage from 401K.
You identified the plane# and flight#, even though neither Boeing nor AA was at fault.
Please name the pilot and copilot, so we can refuse to fly with them and grab a different flight with a different flight crew.
Will the pilots undergo retraining?
If I had their names, I would include them.
The plane seems to be going to way too fast for taxiing.. Is it just the way the video appears or maybe its my eyes but my first thought was the pilot was going really fast, which obviously would not be good and clearly lead to this type of accident. Cut that corner short obviously but that speed…