Like a hot knife through butter. If I saw it correctly, although I’m sure there’s damage, it appeared the wingtip didn’t break off, hang or anything. Gives me confidence when I see them flexing in turbulence. Assuming I saw a correct picture of it. Now the CRJ…
Things that occur to me haven flown similar types - the 350 crew might have been heads down & distracted by their snag; the RJ crew may not have been unaware how close they were to the taxiway. Perhaps the ground controller that had the 350 move up, should have alerted them to a possible hazard.
From the attached video, it appears the CRJ was not fully up to the hold line as the Airbus seems to be tracking the centerline correctly. Not excusing the Airbus crew for their responsibility to maintain clearance, but looks like there’s culpability on both aircrafts’ parts. One wonders what the clearance is for an even larger aircraft holding at that taxiway.
1 reply
Though I fly something very much smaller than either of these airplanes, I’m keenly aware that the consequences of being some distance behind the hold line are usually nowhere near as serious as being so much as an inch OVER the hold line. In either case, the airplane that’s moving has the burden of not hitting anything, regardless of how it happened to be there. At least nobody got hurt.
1 reply
Juan Brown (blancolirio) did a pretty good recap. He counted back the number of strips on the taxiway centerline which showed that the CRJ hadn’t pulled up far enough to the hold short line to keep AirBus-sized traffic taxiing behind them from hitting their tail. My gut tells me that the crews of both jets thought there was enough room for the AirBus to pass by. It’s odd that the AirBus asked Ground what they had hit. They had to have seen the CRJ when they passed behind it. But then again, maybe they were asking because they thought they cleared it.
At any rate, there will be investigations and probably some very exciting discussions for all parties.
1 reply
Juan calculated that the RJ was 40 ft short of the line. That’s pretty far back.
OK, I’ll bite: Just what are the consequences of being “so much as an inch OVER the hold line”?
[We do know the consequences of holding short of the hold line.]