A United Boeing 767-400 hit a bakery truck and clipped a light pole on the New Jersey Turnpike adjacent to Newark Liberty International Airport about 2 p.m. Sunday. The plane landed normally and the driver of the truck suffered minor injuries. The plane likely has some damage. The crew apparently waited until they were off the runway before telling anyone about the anomaly and didn’t want to discuss it over the radio. One of the pilots requested a phone number to call and that request is recorded below.
United confirmed the incident in a statement but acknowledged hitting only the pole. “Upon its final approach into Newark International Airport, United flight 169 came into contact with a light pole. The aircraft landed safely, taxied to the gate normally and no passengers or crew were injured. Our maintenance team is evaluating damage to the aircraft and we will investigate how this occurred,” the statement said. The plane was coming from Venice, Italy, and had 221 passengers and 10 crew members on board. The truck was on its way from H and S Bakery in Baltimore to New Jersey when it was hit. There’s some rough language in the first video but turn the volume up.
If a shot appears of the truck after the hit, please add that. The driver is lucky to be alive!
way back in the 1950’s my aunt/uncle’s car while travelling the perimeter of the Miami international Airport was struck by a Super Constellation and incurred roof,winshield.and A and B Pillar damage. They were shaken, but unhurt. The airliner made a normal landing and no crew or passenger was hurt. It was determined that the starboard main gear bounced off the roof.
Dayum.
Career Decision Day for some poor bastard I would think…
…And for the airline crew…
Holy **** call Morgan & Morgan! this will be new territory for them, ha! Usually they’re blaming the truckers
As bad of a day as those pilots are having, they should buy lottery tickets – as should the bakery truck driver – because that plane was probably less than a foot from this being a much, much more tragic outcome.
Very hard to understand how they could get that low on the approach. Fatigue after a long flight, maybe? But I think that flight would have a relief crew just to prevent this kind of thing.
They already used all their luck. A lottery ticket would do them no good.
“TERRAIN, TERRAIN, PULL UP, PULL UP” or was there some equipment malfunction. I know, look out the f***ing window! I’d like to hear the flight crew’s excuses.
Apparently there is no ILS on that runway, and conditions were right for windshear on the approach. So maybe that contributed. But this incident is one of the closest brushes with huge disaster I’ve ever seen.
Uhhhh, Captain, you might want to have that glide slope checked when they inspect the landing gear.
The crew’ “Look, donuts!”
I didn’t know the pilot’s were former police officers.
I feel the truck driver needs to take some repsonsability for not taking evasive action.
Joking, right?
Time to add transponders to bread trucks….
I can just hear her, there was NO transponder on the bread truck.
Dah dah dah, singing a song on my happy bakery delivery day, dah dahhh, is that a wheel??? WHAMM
Contact a good attorney and that should be a guaranteed winning ticket. No need to buy any. Will they let the guy deliver bread with a Lamborghini?
While working at BNA on a WOXOF kinda morning, CAT 2 or 3 approaches arriving 2L. We couldn’t see a thing out of the tower, just having them report when clear of runway. Two departures taxied out for 2L. First one when cleared for takeoff said, “you got some lights out here on the runway”. We said, “thanks. We will have that taken care of”. Few minutes later the next departure said, “hey, you got broken glass all over the runway here”. Now, that got our attention. We sent a vehicle out to look. He got out there and reported that much of our approach lighting was knocked down and scattered on the runway. How it happened, we sure didn’t know, but had to be an airplane. We called FSDO on the airport and reported it. We checked our landing log. A few AALs were the last to land. FSDO went over to the ramp. Pulling up under one AAL B727, they saw gear door damage and creases in the flaps. Checked ops. The Captain had come and gone, out on another flight already. They told ops to hold him at the next stop. They wanted to talk to him. They finally did. The Captain said if he did that, he sure didn’t know he did. He and the FO both confirmed it was a hard landing though. He said he broke out right at minimums, saw the runway lights, and dove for them instead of staying on GS. He agreed it was not his best maneuver. The outcome, the lights were on frangible mounts and designed to break off easy. They did. For the Captain, he seemed like an honest kiinda guy, got a little company retraining, and put back into the left seat shortly thereafter.