New York — A collision occurred Wednesday night between two Delta Air Lines planes at the intersection of Taxiways M and A at LaGuardia Airport in New York.
In a statement, Delta Air Lines said a “low-speed collision” occurred between Endeavor Air Flight 5047, arriving from Charlotte, North Carolina, and Endeavor Flight 5155, which was scheduled to depart for Roanoke, Virginia.
Endeavor is a Delta subsidiary. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said in a statement that the crash happened just before 10 p.m. Eastern Time.
FAA explains what happened
The Federal Aviation Administration later said Flight 5047 was taxiing to its gate when it struck Flight 5155. The FAA said air traffic control instructed Flight 5155 to hold and yield to the other plane.
“That’s where I’m wondering whether or not there was some miscommunication,” Todd Yeary, a former air traffic controller, told CBS News New York. “Did one crew or other take an instruction or misread an instruction that had been given that actually put them in too close a proximity to an aircraft?”
According to Delta, preliminary information indicates that the wing of Flight 5155 made contact with the fuselage of Flight 5047.
The airline said a flight attendant sustained a minor injury and was treated by EMTs at the scene. The injured person was taken to a hospital, the Port Authority said.
“There was no impact to airport operations,” the Port Authority said of the incident.
Endeavor Flight 5155 was carrying 28 passengers and four crewmembers, Delta said. Endeavor Flight 5047 was carrying 57 passengers and 4 crewmembers.
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating what went wrong. In a post to social media on Thursday, the agency confirmed Flight 5155’s right wing and 5047’s nose and windscreen were damaged in the collision. Flight recorders from both planes were recovered and sent to NTSB headquarters in Washington to be analyzed, the agency said.
A producer who was aboard Flight 5047 captured cellphone video of the damage to the wing of the other plane.
In the video, a pilot aboard Flight 5047 can be heard over the intercom telling passengers that “it seems as though there’s an aircraft that collided with us.”
“It was a pretty violent collision. At the time, we didn’t really know like kind of what we hit,” said
producer Joey Annunziato. He said it sounded like a sardine can opening, “like something was being sheared off and, lo and behold, we looked at the right side of the plane, and the wing looked like it was almost like off the plane.”
Annunziato said he didn’t know “if we hit them or they hit us,” adding, “They hit the brakes like as hard as [Mike] Tyson’s right hook. It was like they slammed the brakes, everybody kind of lurched forward, and then there was impact.”
Passengers were escorted off the planes and on to shuttle buses. The airline said passengers who needed them would be provided hotel rooms and booked onto new flights Thursday.
“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 said in a statement. “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.”
