NEW YORK – An ITA Airways Airbus A330-200 crashes into an Air France Boeing 777-200ER en route from the gate to the runway at New York JFK. The Air France pilots immediately report the collision to air traffic control. Nevertheless, the ITA crew lets them start first – and then go their separate ways.
“We are at position 9, an Alitalia has just passed us and touched our plane. Tell them not to take off!”
Even if Alitalia is now called ITA Airways – the urgent message from the cockpit of Air France 008 leaves little room for interpretation: an Airbus A330-200 with passengers on board is on its way to the runway – and should better be stopped after the bump.
The ground controller digs deeper, the Air France crew insists: “It would be better to stop the take-off.”
Now the controller isn’t sure who he’s actually talking to: “Where are you, Alitalia.” – “This is Air France 008 – we have damage to our aircraft from an Alitalia that rolled past us at position 9” – “Are you sure it was an Alitalia?” – “Yes, that was Alitalia” – “Air France, where do you stand?” – “At gate number 9.”
Radio traffic on incident in New York JFK, © YSL—
Valuable minutes pass, the ground controller finally directs the Air France pilots to the tower. In the meantime, ITA Flight 611 is long in the air.
“Negative, sir”
The A330-200 is in climb out of New York when the tower informs the ITA pilots of the report.
JFK Tower: “Air France says you hit them while taxiing. Do you notice any damage to the plane?”
ITA 611: “Negative, Sir.”
JFK Tower: “All right, just checking and making sure.”
After landing in Rome, the ITA A330-200 EI-EJL was grounded for 46 hours. The Air France 777-200ER F-GSPQ has not departed New York since the June 17, 2022 incident. The incident is now being investigated.
© aero.de | 01.07.2022 10:05
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