CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) - The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said a plane didn’t follow instructions from air traffic controllers before it collided with another jet on the tarmac at LaGuardia Airport Wednesday night.
Both passenger planes involved were Delta regional jets, the airline said.
One of the planes had just landed from Charlotte.
“We struck something, and it was like a pretty violent collision,” Joey Annunziato told CBS New York. “At the time, we didn’t really know what we hit, did we hit the gate, did we hit another plane, a truck, what was it? At first there were a few gasps.”
Annunziato, a CBS News producer, was flying back to New York City from a work assignment in Charlotte.
He took videos on his cell phone, showing one of the planes missing a part of its wing. The nose to the other plane was damaged as well.
“Part of you says, how can you, how do you hit another plane? It’s pretty big, and there’s lights, so part of your brain is like, how does this happen,” Annunziato said.
During the federal government shutdown, all of the FAA’s more than 13,000 air-traffic controllers will continue working, despite not receiving pay.
More than 11,000 FAA employees will be furloughed, the department said.
All employees deemed necessary to protect life and property will continue working.
Despite the disruptions to the FAA, Richard Levy of Aviation Expert Consulting told WBTV this incident at LaGuardia was likely a result of pilot error.
Nobody was seriously hurt during the collision.
> _“Delta teams at our New York-LaGuardia hub are working to ensure our customers are taken care of after two Delta Connection aircraft operated by Endeavor Air were involved in a low-speed collision during taxi. Delta will work with all relevant authorities to review what occurred as safety of our customers and people comes before all else. We apologize to our customers for the experience_."
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