Wednesday, April 13, 2011
On Monday, an Air France Airbus A380, operating as Air France Flight 007, collided with a Comair Bombardier CRJ-700, operating as Comair flight 553/Delta Connection flight 6293 in Delta Connection livery, on a taxiway at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. The A380 had 520 people onboard, and the smaller plane had 66.
The Comair jet had just arrived from Boston Logan International Airport, and was stopped on the tarmac, awaiting a gate to offload passengers. The A380 was preparing to depart for Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport, and was taxiing along a taxiway when its wingtip struck the tail of the other plane. The impact spun the CRJ around 90 degrees and resulted in some damage to both planes.
A passenger on board the A380 said that “It really felt just like a speedbump or like hitting a pothole—a jolt—but it didn’t feel right [it felt] like that shouldn’t be happening.”
LiveATC.net captured the recording of the flight deck and ground control communications before and after the incident. In the recording, one can hear controllers giving taxi instructions to the Air France plane, then later a controller calling for emergency personnel to the intersection of taxiways Alpha and Mike.
The National Transportation Safety Board plans to investigate the incident, and will study the flight recorders, air traffic control recordings, and data from radar on the ground.