A United Airlines plane heading toward its gate collided with the tail of another United plane at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, authorities said.
No one was injured in Friday’s incident and all 113 passengers on Flight 2652 from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, were able to depart the plane normally after a delay, United officials said in a statement.
Such runway collisions could add to concerns about aviation safety in the wake of recent crashes and near-misses — including the deadliest U.S. plane crash 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 planes collided at the intersection of taxiways at New York’s LaGuardia Airport, injuring a flight attendant.
In Friday’s case, the horizontal stabilizer of the second United plane was struck and it was not moving when the planes struck, officials said.
Bill Marcus, a passenger on the flight from Wyoming, said he didn’t even realize anything had happened until the pilot announced there would be a delay documenting something and the plane’s passengers saw a number of people gathering around the right wing.
“I was shocked that I didn’t feel something more, even though when they separated the planes there was some shaking,” Marcus told CBS News Chicago. It took about another 40 minutes for the plane to arrive at the gate, he said.
