On Tuesday at New Chitose Airport near Sapporo, Japan, a Korean Air Airbus A330-300 collided with a stationary Cathay Pacific Boeing 777, which was unoccupied at the time. This incident, involving no injuries, occurred amidst snowy conditions. More than 45 flights were cancelled due to weather.
Korean Air confirmed all 276 passengers and 13 crew members on board were unharmed. The collision happened at 5:35 p.m. as the Korean Air plane was taxiing, with the incident attributed to a ground handler vehicle slipping in the heavy snow.
Korean Air Airbus A330-300 (HL7702) and Cathay Pacific AW Boeing 777-300 (B-HNJ or B-HNW) sustained damage in a ground collision at Sapporo New Chitose Intl AP (RJCC), Japan. Korean flight #KE766 was pushing back from its stand when the left wingtip struck the tail of the… pic.twitter.com/4M6IwALCyt
— JACDEC (@JacdecNew) January 16, 2024
WATCH : Footage of moment when Korean Air & Cathay Pacific passenger aircraft collided at the Hokkaido airport, Japan. #Japan pic.twitter.com/9T0G5GeS71
— World Times (@WorldTimesWT) January 16, 2024
Both airlines have stated that their passengers had to be relocated to alternate flights. The airport’s emergency response teams were prepared for potential hazards, but no oil leaks or fires were reported.
According to Cathay Pacific,
Our aircraft, which was stationary at the time with no customers nor crew onboard, was struck by a Korean Air A330 which was taxiing past.
Over the past decade, Japan has reported at least 23 serious incidents potentially leading to runway collisions, as noted by the Japan Transport Safety Board. The Asahi newspaper highlighted that air traffic control errors were suspected in five of these cases.
(HT: Sharad Ranabhat)
OMG! Boeing is out of control! They are now parking airplanes that are causing collisions!
Talk about an expensive fender bender!
But how could a slipping ground vehicle cause this? Would it normally come so close that they could be not aware they were off course before the impact?
I expected that the hate Boeing first crowd would be saying how the Boeing airplane was the actual cause of the collision and praise the structural integrity of the Airbus airplane.