This Thanksgiving is expected to be the busiest ever for commercial airlines, according to the beloved holiday package fondlers at the Transportation Security Administration. It’s the time of year when people are willing to commit crimes to ensure their flights leave on time. That wasn’t the case at Boston Logan International Airport where there were two separate aircraft collisions on Monday. No one was injured but the pair of incidents doesn’t put the facility’s ground crew in a good light.
First, an American Airlines Boeing 777 being towed into a gate hit the wingtip of a parked Frontier Airlines Airbus A321. American Airlines Flight 109 was coming in from London after a transatlantic crossing, the Boston Herald reported. Frontier Flight 3601 was scheduled to fly to Dallas Fort Worth. Frontier offered its 200 passengers onboard the struck plane a $100 future travel credit and the option to rebook or receive a full refund.
Later that day, a tug towing an empty JetBlue Airbus A321 collided with the back of a Cape Air Tecnam P2012 waiting to park at a gate. There were three passengers on the 11-seater turboprop plane that just landed at Logan Airport from Nantucket, WCVB reported. The Cape Air flight’s two pilots were taken to the hospital as a precautionary measure. The JetBlue plane was slated to operate a service to Orlando and passengers were forced to wait three hours for a replacement plane. The Federal Aviation Administration is now investigating both incidents.
This isn’t the first time that two planes collided at Logan Airport. Two United Airlines planes collided on the tarmac in March 2023 while one aircraft was being pushed back from a gate. There were far more serious close calls on the runways with air traffic control issuing “go-around” orders on two separate occasions to prevent potentially deadly crashes. I’d rather be on a dozen delayed flights than chance a near-miss on a runway.