London –
Two commercial plane wings collided at Heathrow Airport on Saturday (6/4/2024). Damaged wings and aircraft changes.
A Boeing 787-9 jet belonging to Virgin Atlantic collided with an Airbus A350 belonging to British Airways. The incident occurred on the terminal 3 runway at around 12 noon.
Launch Stuff.co.nz, Tuesday (9/4/2024), the Virgin Atlantic plane has completed its flight and is being towed to another part of the airport. At the time of the incident, there were no passengers on the plane. Meanwhile, British Airways confirmed that passengers were on board the plane when the collision occurred.
As a result, another aircraft was used to serve the flight. Emergency services were called after the collision.
Private pilot Alex Whittles (47) witnessed the accident and told the chronology.
“There was an empty Virgin 787 being pushed backwards by a tugboat, but the towboat apparently took the wrong angle and it was clear that they were going to hit the British Airways plane,” he told The Telegraph.
“That’s why I was paying close attention and then I saw the accident,” he continued.
He said there were no fires or other problems. Officials are looking for ways to minimize further damage from the incident.
“I believe the BA plane was filled with passengers and was about to leave for Accra. The emergency crew worked very quickly, but there was no fire or other problem, they were just making plans on how best to extricate it without causing further damage to any of the planes,” he said.
A Virgin Atlantic spokesperson confirmed the incident. He said that no passengers were victims of the collision between the plane’s wings.
“We are aware that the wingtip of one of our empty aircraft came into contact with another aircraft as it was being towed from the runway at London Heathrow’s Terminal 3,” a spokesperson said.
“The safety of our customers and crew is always our top priority. We can confirm that no customers were on board the Virgin Atlantic aircraft at the time of the incident,” he explained.
“We have initiated a full and thorough investigation, and our engineering team is carrying out maintenance checks on the aircraft, which has been removed from service for now.”
The spokesperson said there had been no disruption to Virgin’s flight program. Meanwhile, British Airways also spoke out.
“One of our aircraft, while stopping at Heathrow today, was involved in a collision with another airline’s jet, which was being towed from the runway,” a British Airways spokesperson said.
“Our aircraft is being reviewed by our engineering team and we have provided alternative aircraft to limit the impact on our customers,” he explained.
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(wks/wks)
2024-04-08 23:00:41
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