Two Ryanair flights collided on the runway at London Stansted airport, ripping the wind tip off of one jet and causing passengers to disembark.
A Ryanair flight from Frankfurt Hahn that had just landed collided with a plane that was getting ready to take off to Warsaw at about 6:45 a.m. The incident caused a delay of about three hours at the airport, the Daily Mail reports.
According to Ryanair, the wing tip of one of the planes and the tail cone of the other made contact and both planes were damaged. Essex police gave the pilots breathalyzers and both turned out negative. No passengers were hurt. The planes involved were both Boeing 737-800s, which can carry up to 189 passengers.
One passenger on the Warsaw-bound flight, Ren Ivaldi took to Twitter to describe the incident. "Huge loud crashing noise and totally felt the crush sitting at the back," Ivaldi wrote. "Thank God it only hit the wing as if it was the body of the plane it'd been apocalypse... The other plane's wing is half crushed. No electricity on plane. No toilets, no ventilation."
Robin Kiely, a Ryanair spokesman released a statement saying, "[Yesterday] morning at London Stansted the wing tip and tail cone of two Ryanair aircraft made contact while one aircraft was taxiing to stand and the other was commencing pushback from stand. Customers were disembarked and boarded two replacement aircraft which departed Stansted with a delay of approximately three hours."
"Our Stansted based engineering team are currently investigating and will repair both aircraft and return them to service as soon as possible. Ryanair sincerely apologises to affected customers for any inconvenience," Kiely added.
Chris Wiggan, a spokesman for Stansted Aiport also confirmed the incident, saying, "We can confirm two aircraft were involved in a minor collision while on the ground at Stansted this morning. Both planes suffered some damage but there were no reported injuries to passengers or crew. The airport is operating as normal while an Air Accident Investigation Branch investigation takes place. Passengers from the outbound flight were offloaded onto an alternative aircraft to continue their journey."
