An airport worker at Denver International Airport was hospitalized on Friday morning after a United Airlines Boeing 737 collided with a deicing truck during a spell of bad winter weather, toppling the truck over onto its side.
The accident occurred as United flight UA-605 from Denver to Nashville was preparing for departure at around 8:00 am on March 6.
Due to the cold weather conditions, the pilots of the Boeing 737 requested that the aircraft be de-iced, and it was cleared to taxi to a central de-icing area, which isn’t normally managed by the air traffic control tower.
When the plane taxiied onto the deicing ramp, the right-hand wing hit the side of the de-icing truck, knocking the truck on its side. Emergency responders were dispatched to the plane, and the airport worker in the cab of the truck was transported to the hospital.
On board the plane, the 122 passengers and six crew members were eventually deplaned via mobile airstairs and then transported back to the terminal building on buses.
In the end, the flight left Denver more than six hours late and eventually arrived in Nashville at 5:20 pm on Friday.
In a statement, a spokesperson for United Airlines explained: “A de-icing truck made contact with a United aircraft in Denver on Friday morning, leading to an employee of the de-icing contractor being transported to the hospital.”
The statement added: “Customers deplaned via air stairs and were bused to the terminal, and we arranged for a different aircraft to take customers to their destination.”
While United said the deicing truck struck its plane, a spokesperson for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said the plane struck the truck. The FAA said it would be investigating the incident.
We’re now coming to the end of the normal deicing season, but in January, at the height of severe winter storms that gripped the United States, a bizarre incident occurred at LaGuardia Airport in New York when a passenger on board a Delta Air Lines flight was “soaked” in deicing fluid.
The Airbus A220 service to Jacksonville had taxiied to the deicing pad without incident, but as the deicing procedure started, the pilots radioed air traffic control to explain that “a bunch of deicing fluid leaked inside the aircraft and soaked a passenger.”
How, exactly, the fluid managed to leak inside the plane remains a mystery. Thankfully, the passenger was not injured.
