Truck Collides With Airplane

January 1, 2010

in Airplane Stories

I fly quite often on various different airlines throughout the year, however I never seem to have a lack of issues with travel.

Recently, I was on a flight from Los Angeles to Denver. The flight was initially running a little bit late, but at first was nothing to worry about. I had been bumped up to first class, so I was one of the first passengers to board. After sitting down and ordering a drink and while the rest of the passengers were boarding, suddenly the entire plane shook violently, but only for a second. Being in Los Angeles, most of us assumed it was a small earthquake until we overheard the flight attendant talking about what happened. Apparently, one of the airline staff on the ground ran into the back of the plane with his truck. The flight attendant mentioned he had a “depth perception problem.”

Everyone continued boarding and the captain came on and said that the mechanics would check the plane to make sure there was no damage. After close to an hour, he came back on and reported that no exterior damage was found and we would be on our way.

The plane then pushed back from the gate and stopped. After a few minutes of not moving, the captain came on and said that a mechanical problem had been detected and that they were going to pull back up to the gate so that the mechanical team could look at it. We were not allowed to get off the plane during this time and they did not open any of the doors.

After another hour, the captain finally came back on and reported that they could not determine what the problem was and that we would be getting off the plane so they could further inspect it. Everyone disembarked and waited at the gate until approximately a half hour later when they announced the plane was not going to be fixed and that another plane was on its way for us to board.

After waiting another half hour, the next plane finally arrived and we were on our way… 4 hours later than our original flight.

{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }

Tim Spooner January 1, 2010 at 5:25 pm

I was on a flight from Auckland to Bangkok on Thai Airways. Everything on boarding went smoothly (as it always seems to do on Thai) and the plane had just started to be pushed back from the airbridge when EVERYTHING went dead! No engines, no power, no lights, nothing! It went from the normal sounds to total silence. Nobody spoke ,it was like time stood still. The plane was pulled back to the airbridge and "things were done to it" for about 20 minutes, then the usual flight routine went ahead and we landed 11 hours later, although I think everybody was listening throughout to make sure it did not go quiet again . My friend who is a senior engineer with Thai told me it was probably caused by an error in transferring fuel feed from the auxiliary engine to the main engines.

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TK January 4, 2010 at 2:45 am

My son actually had that happen to him. He was marshaling in a plane while short staffed so he had only one wing walker. Next thing you knew the plane's wing clipped the jetway. Sirens, fire trucks and airport cops arrived…. the whole nine yards. Talk about a bad day at work 😉

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MM February 22, 2010 at 7:03 am

Had a similar experience flying from Puerto Rico to Miami.

I'd just finished a vacation in Martinique, and had flown up to Puerto Rico to connect to Miami. After waiting in customs long enough to miss my flight, I was rerouted to a red-eye flight. After sitting in San Juan airport for many hours, I was finally able to board my flight.

I was lucky enough to have been seated in first class (my aunt and uncle had paid for my trip and decided to spoil me), and as the plane started backing up I struck up a conversation with a man from Dominica. Suddenly, everything went black and the plane drifted back slowly. I wasn't too worried, but I wasn't an extremely experienced flyer ever–probably a dozen or so flights in my life. The guy next to me said, "Well, now the pilots are on their toes. Imagine if that happened in the air. These things aren't meant to be in the air…given the chance they'll come right down." Comforting. Lights came back on and we flew home.

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