Planes That Go Bump in the Night

"Minor" collision occur at a rate almost one a day in the U.S.

On Sunday night, the trail section of a United Airlines Boeing 757 backing out from a gate bumped into the tail assembly of a SkyWest Regional Jet 700, damaging both aircraft but causing no injuries. SkyWest, with 54 passengers plus crew, had been cleared for departure for Boise, while the large United plane was moving to a maintenance hangar and was back out with the aid of a tug.

The incident occurred at San Francisco International Airport's domestic Terminal C on Sunday night at 7:30 p.m. Passengers evacuated from the SkyWest plane, which was headed to Boise and walked back to the terminal. As noted, there were no human injuries. The planes, on the other hand, were both hurt. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that "both had part of their tails sheared - specifically the vertical stabilizer assembly - and both had damage to their engines."

SFO duty manager Lily Wang was quoted as explaining, "The 757's tail basically went on top of the regional jet. It is dark out there. It is nighttime. It could be [United] not seeing that other airplane because it is very low."

The Chronicle also noted, "The crash will be investigated by the Federal Aviation Administration, and is certain to raise new questions about safety at the airport. In a report released in October by the FAA, SFO was declared one of the nation's riskiest airports in terms of near-collisions on runways or incidents in which pilots get confused while taxiing around the airfields."

According to that FAA report, there were 330 reports of crashes, near-collisions and other potentially serious incidents nationwide from October 2006 to September 2007 -- that's almost one a day. Such little "love taps" on taxiways and elsewhere the ground where aircraft move slowly are worrisome even when there are no injuries. After all, SkyWest is a United partner -- its main one on the West Coast, in fact -- and therefore use the same terminal. One would think that flight crews on large aircraft would be just as conscious of smaller planes nearby as truck drivers should be of passenger vehicles on the road.