Shuttle Bus Collides With American Airlines Jet At LAX, Four People Hospitalized

by Gary Leff

An American Airlines Airbus A321 without passengers on board collided with a shuttle bus in Los Angeles on Friday evening. The plane was being pulled by a tug to park in a remote location, and the shuttle was carrying passengers between the American terminal and the remote ‘Eagles Nest’ building for regional flights.

The fire department treated five people at the scene. Four people were hospitalized. Two were passengers, the bus driver was taken to the hospital as well, as was the tug driver. Two are in moderate condition but it’s not believed that anyone’s injuries are life-threatening.

Here’s air traffic control audio from the incident.

Since planes are generally given priority, and buses are supposed to stop, the bus driver was presumably at fault here. However it’s not clear what sort of miscommunication happened yet.

Hopefully everyone recovers quickly, and the cause of the incident can be clearly uncovered and addressed to improve safety on the ramp.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. Given LAX’s plan to add a new terminal for United/Star Alliance in the general area of the Eagle’s Nest, would the Eagle’s Nest (and this hazard) go away?

  2. Now another reason to avoid connecting in LAX on AA via the abysmal and cluster of a terminal called the “Eagles Nest”

  3. 1. Something is off with the way vehicles (including aircrafts) on tarmacs in the US are being managed. With this, the Southwest flight nearly colliding with another plane, and the near collision of two planes at JFK, something needs to be fixed.

    2. For years, I have wondered why flight attendants are so strict when a plane is moving on the ground and concerned about safety then, but that it is a free for all on crowded busses while moving across the same tarmac area. It never made sense to me.

  4. “Given LAX’s plan to add a new terminal for United/Star Alliance in the general area of the Eagle’s Nest, would the Eagle’s Nest (and this hazard) go away?”

    The “Nest” will go away. Unlikely the busing will. AA Eagle will be relocated to an extension of the midfield satellite concourse. The farthest potential AA to AA connection would be between T5 & the MSC South extension. A long transit if attempted by foot. Doable, but long.

  6. Good comments all around so far, thanks guys. As for me I’m simply fascinated at the two dramatically different ways that this is described in the tweets: One says “an American Airlines plane collided with a bus”, and the other says “a passenger bus collided with a plane”. For what it’s worth, Gary’s title is “Shuttle Bus Collides With American Airlines Jet”. Suffice to say, it matters hugely who had the right of way (which in turn defines how the incident should be paraphrased). I’ve always understood that aircraft always had the right of way on the tarmac, but I’ll admit that there may be exceptions and extenuating circumstances to that. We can all stay tuned, I suspect this one will be quickly sorted out.

  7. I have taken those shuttle buses quite a few times. The drivers always seam like they are in a hurry because of the
    Long lines in the AA “ eagle nest” it would help if there were more busses running or they put in some kind of rain car system.

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