Two airplanes were damaged after the right wing of a Japan Airlines (JAL) Boeing 787 clipped the tail of a Delta Air Lines Boeing 737 flight at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA) in the United States. The latter was sitting idle as the JAL plane crossed behind it. The incident occurred at around 10:40 a.m. on Wednesday, February 5, in an area that wasn’t under air traffic control.
No Injuries from Either JAL or Delta Flight
There were 185 people on the JAL aircraft, including 13 crew members and 172 passengers. The Delta aircraft had 142 passengers on board. They were all deplaned and brought to the terminal. Fortunately, there were no reports of injuries on either plane. The Delta flight was waiting to have ice removed from its exterior when the incident occurred. The impact on airport operations was said to be “minimal.”
Vancouver resident, Jackie Patton, who was sitting in a window seat on the Delta flight heading to meet her parents for a vacation in Puerto Vallarta, posted a video of the two planes colliding. She described the “violent shaking in the plane and a really loud crunching sound,” stating, “It was obvious right away something was wrong.” She added, “It was very scary.”
Safety of Airline Travel in the US Under Intense Scrutiny
The incident occurred at a time when the safety of airline travel in the United States is under intense scrutiny. On January 29, 67 people were killed after an American Eagle regional jet collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River near Washington DC. It was the deadliest US air disaster in more than two decades.
Two days later, six people on board a small medical transport plane and one person on the ground were killed when the aircraft crashed into several buildings in the US city of Philadelphia. It was carrying a child patient and her mother, as well as two pilots, a doctor and a paramedic. Everyone on board was Mexican.
