BOSTON (WHDH) - Planes collided on the tarmac at Boston’s Logan International Airport in two separate incidents Monday, according to Massport.
At around 6:30 p.m., a vehicle towing an empty JetBlue airplane struck a Cape Air plane that had just flown in from Nantucket, according to the airlines. Two Cape Air pilots were taken to the hospital out of an abundance of caution.
“The tug has been removed from service, and the JetBlue aircraft will undergo a thorough inspection. Safety is JetBlue’s first priority, and we will investigate this incident,” JetBlue said in a statement.
Caroline Agid snapped a photo from inside the airport, showing emergency crews on the tarmac.
“It’s just red lights everywhere,” Agid said. “It looks like the front top of the Cape Air plane got smushed.”
Lawrence Brown, a passenger on a nearby plane, said he saw the two planes through the window Monday evening.
“The plane, all of a sudden, came to this screeching halt and I knew something had happened,” Brown said. “The pilot came on and said that we were waiting on the tarmac because two planes had an incident. We were taxiing by and I saw that the nose of the JetBlue plane was like this close to the Cape Air plane.”
Hours earlier, an American Airlines aircraft that had flown in from London’s Heathrow Airport made contact with a parked Frontier Airlines plane that was awaiting pushback at the airport, according to both airlines.
Passengers were taken off both of the planes so the aircraft could be checked for damage, Massport said.
The Frontier Airlines plane had been preparing to fly to Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, but the flight was then canceled, according to the airline.
No injuries were reported, according to Massport.
SKY7-HD was live above Terminal E, where the two planes touched. The airport was bustling with travelers ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday.
Some passengers on the Frontier Airlines plane said they felt a jolt when the aircraft made contact.
“That was terrible. It was very scary. All of a sudden, thump. It sounded like something fell from below,” Evelyn Pipione, a Frontier passenger, said.
Pipione and her daughter April O’Brien were upset their flight was canceled Monday, as they were trying to get to Dallas to tend to a family emergency.
“It’s horrible because my sister-in-law has stage four cancer, so we’re trying to get to see her,” O’Brien said.
Douglas Garcia, who was also on the Frontier flight, took photos of the wing through the airplane window.
“So, you can see the wing actually broke on the bottom, so the bigger plane — the wing is over, and then ours is cracked at the bottom,” Garcia said.
Passengers on the American Airlines flight said they did not know their plane made contact with another.
“Well if I’d known I’d been clipped by a plane, I would have been scared, but we didn’t know that. We didn’t feel anything,” Joan Hale, an American Airlines passenger, said. “They just didn’t pull in quite close enough to the gate, so they were going to wait for someone to tow them another 20 yards or so. They didn’t come so they brought stairs.”
The incident remains under investigation.
Mike Marxsen, the chief flight instructor at the Beverly Flight Center, said these “runway incursions” appear to be more common now than ever. He said he blames staffing and training for the incidents.
“The people that are doing the jobs now are still more likely to be in some sort of a training mode as opposed to being experienced and doing this for a long time, because they’re trying to hire new people,” Marxsen said.
With Thanksgiving being one of the busiest travel times of year, Marxsen said that the airport itself is likely strained.
“You’re really trying to pack the system, and in this case, the physical property of the airport with as much traffic as you can, because you’re trying to get everyone to their destinations,” Marxsen said.
This is a developing news story; stay with 7NEWS on-air and online for the latest details.
(Copyright (c) 2024 Sunbeam Television. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)