Two Delta regional jets made contact on a New York LaGuardia (LGA) taxiway, causing minor damage and one non-life-threatening injury to a flight attendant.
Two Delta Jets Collide On LaGuardia Taxiway
The incident occurred just before 10 p.m. and involved two Endeavor Air-operated CRJ-900 regional jets, a wholly owned subsidiary of Delta Air Lines. One aircraft, Delta flight 5047, was arriving from Charlotte (CLT) and another, Delta flight 5155, was preparing to depart for Roanoke (ROA) when the departing aircraft’s wing clipped the fuselage of the arriving aircraft during taxi.
Delta said the collision was at “low speed.” A flight attendant sustained a minor injury and was treated at the scene. No passengers were reported injured. Both aircraft were taken out of service for inspection and repair. Per Delta:
Delta teams at our New York-LaGuardia hub are working to ensure our customers are taken care of after two Delta Connection aircraft operated by Endeavor Air were involved in a low-speed collision during taxi.
Delta will work with all relevant authorities to review what occurred as safety of our customers and people comes before all else. We apologize to our customers for the experience.
Passengers were deplaned by bus and rebooked. Delta issued meal vouchers and hotel accommodations as needed and says it is cooperating with airport authorities while the incident is investigated. The Port Authority reported no significant impact to overall airport operations.
I’m not going to overdramatize this collision, but I’m also not going to minimize it because it appears that someone was not paying attention…and while the damage here is primarily limited to property, not people, even the removal of these two aircraft from service will have a cascading effect and was likely preventable.
CONCLUSION
Two Delta jets collided in LGA, injuring a flight attendant and damaging both aircraft. Delta handled the immediate customer impact appropriately with rebooking and care, downplaying the seriousness of the collision. But now an investigation must clarify root causes and corrective steps to prevent such a needless accident in the future.
image: @oren_juice / X
The “root cause” was operating at night . The “corrective step” is to halt night operations .
Pilots are not perfect , and ought not be driving at night . That is when vision-related accidents happen .
I don’t drive my Jeep at night , and I strongly urge my women to not do so . “Baby , it’s dark outside”
I absolutely love driving at night. Way less traffic and I am fortunate to have a car with extremely high quality LED headlights which makes viewing the road super easy.
Yet , you are not speeding around on a crowded airport with long wings sticking out , with an air hostess on your lap and holding a champagne glass .
Might just be a misperception, but it seems we have had more ground accidents this year. Fortunately the injuries are minor but where are the improvements we’ve been promised?
I wonder if it is time for planes to have 360 view cameras in the cockpit including sensors at the tipoff wings to alert if getting close to something that might cause an impact. Similar to most cars today, those alerts can be disabled if needed but I find those features extremely helpful in cars so it shouldn’t be difficult to have them available on planes.
Yet you prove my point : the “need” for cameras on the wings shows the “root cause” is vision impairment at night .
Fortunately, those two jetliners weren’t airborne… Speedy recovery to the injured flight attendant!
Dr. Güntürk Üstün
Oren’s cute.