While we occasionally see aircraft have incidents on the ground, this has to be one of the worse ones we’ve seen in quite some time (perhaps since a Delta A350 sliced the tail off a Delta Connection CRJ-900). I first covered this yesterday, but want to provide an update, as we now have the ATC audio of the incident, which provides a bit of clarity regarding what happened.
Specifically, it involves flight DL5155, which was taxiing for departure, bound for Roanoke, Virginia (ROA), and flight DL5047, which was taxiing after landing, arriving from Charlotte, North Carolina (CLT). Based on preliminary details, it appears that the wing of the departing aircraft made contact with the nose of the arriving aircraft.
What makes this even stranger is that the instructions from the air traffic controller were pretty clear, and they were also read back correctly. So were the pilots of one of the planes just confused about which “company” plane they were supposed to give way to, or what?
A great solo travel tip spotted this week on One Mile at a Time.
