Two planes cut off their wings while taxiing at Washington's Reagan National Airport on Thursday afternoon, according to NBC News Washington.
Gregory Gillian, one of the passengers on the plane, filmed at least some of the incident and shared it with the station.
Adam Tuss of NBC Washington reported that the wingtip of American Airlines Flight 5490 attacked American Airlines Flight 4522 on a taxiway around 12:45pm local time. He said Flight 5490, a Bombardier CRJ 900, headed to Charleston International Airport in South Carolina. Flight 4522, an Embraer E175, headed to JFK International Airport in New York.
Airport and Federal Aviation Administration officials have confirmed the incident, but no additional details regarding injuries or flight disruptions have been released.
The incident adds to growing concerns about US aviation safety. Since President Donald Trump took office in January and raided the FAA and other federal agencies, a series of fatal and non-fatal aviation events have raised red flags around the country.
On January 29, a passenger jet and a Black Hawk helicopter collided into the air, crashing into the Potomac River near Reagan National Airport. All 67 victims were identified. Just two days later, Learjet's medical transport crashed in Philadelphia, with all six on board and one on the ground. The crash left a massive fireball in the neighborhood shortly after the plane took off from a small nearby airport.
In February, a commute in Alaska fell on sea ice and killed 10 people. Other troubling events followed. United Airlines flights from Chicago were forced to return to O'Hare after unexpected issues in the cockpit. Another O'Hare aircraft attacked the ground vehicle, seriously injured Tag's driver.
Additional incidents have been reported at Seattle and Houston airports. Japan Airlines plane attacked a parked delta jet while taxiing at Seattle-Tacoma International. In Houston, a unified flight ignited the wings during takeoff following an engine malfunction.
Security raps has also been made into the headline. The dead storeway was found inside the wheelwells of two separate aircraft, and opened the emergency exit door to a plane that passengers were recently preparing to take off in Boston.
Delta Air Lines' flight from Minneapolis to Toronto crashed in February. Investigators have not determined the cause, but the collision occurred during active snowfall, following two winter storms in the area. Air traffic control recordings from Toronto Pearson International Airport confirmed that the plane was cleared to land just after 2pm local time. The controller warned pilots of turbulence caused by another aircraft in the landing path.
“It's very rare to see something like this,” said John Cox, CEO of the air safety company's safety operating system and former US pilot who worked on the NTSB investigation. “We've seen some takeoffs where the plane has turned around, but that's pretty rare.”
Cox added that the CRJ900 is a proven aircraft capable of handling difficult weather. “The weather conditions were windy. The winds were 27-35 knots from the west. This is 38 mph. However, the plane is designed and certified to handle it. The pilots are trained and experienced to handle it.”
More than 140 aviation accidents are currently under investigation across the US, according to data from the National Transportation Safety Board. Three of them are in Washington. In January alone, the NTSB began 53 investigations, including seven fatal collisions. There were 71 surveys in February and six fatal crashes. In March, the board investigated 16 crashes, three of which were fatal.
In 2024, the NTSB recorded 1,417 aviation accidents. Of these, 258 were associated with deaths.
The FAA continues to face a serious shortage of air traffic controllers and engineers. Many cite uncompetitive salaries, long hours, intensive training and forced retirement as the main reasons for staffing crisis. As cases continued to increase and the number of qualified staff continued to shrink, the situation became more urgent.
Senator Maria Cantwell, chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, which oversees the FAA, has spoken out about the outcomes of staff cuts.
“Now it's not time to fire technicians who fix and operate over 74,000 safety critical equipment, including radar, navigation AIDS, and communications technology,” she wrote about the X.
