The wings of two United Airlines planes had a slight collision at Newark Liberty International Airport at around 8:45 a.m. Friday.
United Flight 2135 to Orlando, a Boeing 757, was under maintenance with passengers aboard when a larger plane without passengers, also operated by United, clipped its wing.
“The United Flight 2135 was struck by a Boeing 787, a Dreamliner, that arrived from Johannesburg, South Africa, earlier in the morning. The much larger plane was being relocated by a tug when it made contact with the smaller Boeing 757, parked at the gate,” the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement, according to New York’s WABC-TV.
The portion of the 757’s wingtip that points up, the winglet, was snapped off, reported New York’s WNBC-TV.
The 787 Dreamliner was originally slated to rest at Terminal C, where the collision occurred, before being used for a United Airlines flight to Denver later that day.
Passenger Rebecca Blum described how the incident felt on the 757, noting to WABC-TV that she felt a “jolt … looked outside and saw as clear as day the wing of a larger plane had clipped our wing. Definitely heard it. Felt it mildly, I would say, but more the noise.”
The pilot then explained what the passengers had seen, preventing panic. No injuries were reported.
Flight 2135 was successfully deplaned and sent off on a new aircraft at 11:35 a.m. The flight was delayed three hours 55 minutes in total, according to flight tracking website FlightAware.
• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.
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