Two Delta Air Lines regional jets have collided while taxiing at LaGuardia Airport, causing serious damage to the fuselage and cockpit of one of the planes and leaving one passenger injured.
The incident occurred on Wednesday night as one of the planes was taxiing to the runway for takeoff, and the second plane was taxiing to the gate after just landing in LaGuardia.
Photos taken by passengers who were on the planes showed serious damage to the cockpit of one of the aircraft after the wing of the second plane clipped it as it taxiied past.
Both aircraft were being operated by Endeavour Air, a wholly owned subsidiary of Delta Air Lines, which operates regional jets branded as Delta Connection.
- The first plane was a CRJ-900LR regional aircraft, which was preparing for departure from LaGuardia to Roanoke in Virginia as flight DL-5155.
- The second plane was also a CRJ-900LR, which had just landed in LaGuardia following a short flight from Charlotte.
The wing of the Roanoke-bound aircraft collided with the front of the plane that had just landed from Charlotte. Thankfully, the two pilots in the damaged cockpit were not hurt, but one passenger reported to a flight attendant that they had been injured during the collision.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Delta Air Lines described the accident as a “low-speed collision.” The injured passenger was taken to a local area hospital as a “precautionary measure.”
Although rare, so-called ‘ground collisions’ do occur from time to time. Last month, two United Airlines aircraft clipped tails at San Francisco International Airport. That accident occurred when one of the planes was being pushed back from the gate and made contact with the second plane.
That incident, however, is nothing compared to an accident at Atlanta Hartsfield in September 2024, when the wing of a Delta Air Lines Airbus A350 sliced off the tailfin of a Delta regional jet.
A preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) revealed that the regional jet had stopped short of the entrance to one of the runways at Atlanta Hartsfield. Just moments later, the A350 taxiied past on an adjacent taxiway, with its wing colliding with the tail of the regional jet.
Surprisingly, only one person was injured – a flight attendant on the regional jet who was reportedly sitting at the back of the plane.
