Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) have arrived at Newark International Airport, where they will begin their probe into serious occurrence involving a United Airlines Boeing 767, which clipped a delivery truck and a light pole as it came into land on Sunday afternoon.
Even before NTSB investigators arrived at the airport on Monday morning, it had already ordered United Airlines to obtain and preserve the ‘Black Box’ cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder, which could provide priceless insight into what caused the incident.
United Airlines flight UA-169, which had 221 passengers and 10 crew members on board, was in the final moments of an eight-and-a-half-hour flight from Venice, Italy, on May 3, and had been instructed to land on Runway 29, which runs almost perpendicular to the Route 95 New Jersey Turnpike.
Just before the plane crossed the threshold of the airfield, a tire on the extended landing gear appears to have struck a delivery truck that was driving along the New Jersey Turnpike, as well as a light pole running along the road.
Horrifying footage from a dashcam inside the delivery truck was released within a couple of hours of the incident, showing the vehicle being sent into a spin after it was struck.
The driver had to be rushed to the hospital, but thankfully was not seriously injured.
On Monday, an additional image of the incident appears to have been obtained from surveillance camera footage, which clearly shows the landing gear coming into contact with the truck as it passed over the highway at a very low altitude.
The NTSB has officially declared the incident as an ‘accident’, which is an important distinction as it signifies that the aircraft has sustained “substantial damage which adversely affects the structural strength, performance, or flight characteristics of the aircraft, and which would normally require major repair or replacement of the affected component.”
As well as retrieving the Black Box recorders, NTSB investigators plan to conduct interviews with the flight crew of the aircraft on Monday.
In a statement, the NTSB said its investigation “will examine multiple factors, including flight operations, meteorological conditions, human performance, crew resource management, aircraft performance and air traffic control.”
The aircraft involved in the accident, a 23-year-old Boeing 767 (registration: N77066), remains grounded at Newark. None of the passengers or crew on board flight UA-169 were injured.
There has already been a healthy amount of speculation as to the cause of the accident, including the potential for strong gusts of wind that could have affected the aircraft’s altitude, the instrumentation in use on Runway 29, and the fact that Runway 29 is rarely used for landings.
It should be noted, however, that all of these theories are just speculation, and it will take the NTSB some time to complete its investigation into this incident.
