SEATTLE, Wash. — The Seattle-Tacoma International Airport says a Japan Airlines aircraft appears to have hit the tail of a parked Delta plane Wednesday morning.
It happened just after 10:15 a.m. on the ramp between the S Concourse and the south airport maintenance hangar.
No injuries have been reported at this time.
Port of Seattle Fire, Police, and SEA operations responded to the incident.
“All of a sudden, got pushed to our left pretty, pretty violently,” said Tony Christensen, who was on board the Delta flight, which was heading to Puerto Vallarta. “Everybody was kind of in shock.”
“We could see out, like all the emergency vehicles and just everybody coming to figure out what happened,” Tony’s wife Amy said. “But we didn’t know what really had happened until we actually were deplaning.”
SEA worked with both airlines to safely deplane passengers and bring them to the terminal.
“There is minimal impact to airport operations as this occurred on a taxi lane. Passengers are encouraged to check with their airlines if they are flying today,” SEA wrote online.
According to flight tracker FlightAware, the Japan Airlines flight was on a Boeing 787 that had just landed from Tokyo
Delta Airlines sent KIRO 7 the following statement:
“While in sequence for deicing, the tail of a Delta 737 aircraft reportedly made contact with a wing tip of another airline’s aircraft. There are no reports of injuries for crew or customers on the flight, and we apologize for the experience and delay in travels.”
Delta says there were 142 customers onboard its aircraft at the time. Everyone is being accommodated on a new plane.
Delta says it will work with all aviation stakeholders to investigate how the crash happened.
“These little ground collisions are not common,” said aviation industry expert Scott Hamilton. “But they’re not unknown and usually no one is hurt.”
An American Airlines flight clipped a United flight while taxiing in Chicago last month.
“A parked plane may be parked where it should not be, or it could be that the airplane taxiing is a little off the center line,” said Hamilton on these instances. “There are a couple different reasons for it, but obviously somebody was out of position.”
This is a developing story and KIRO 7 has a crew headed to the scene. Check back for updates.