Smaller Aircraft Was Spun Around By The Impact, No Injuries Reported

An Air France A380 (F-HPJD) taxiing for takeoff collided with a Comair Bombardier CRJ-700  (N641CA) taxiing to a gate at JFK International Airport  Monday night, causing the regional jet to spin violently about 90 degrees.

A380 File Photo

The event was captured on video at the airport. Sources indicate no one on board either aircraft was injured. In the video, the left wing of the airbus can be seen hitting the the vertical stabilizer of the CRJ, and the smaller plane lurching to the right from the camera's point of view. "Roll the emergency trucks at Mike," one of the Comair pilots radioed after the collision. "We've been hit by Air France." The conversation was captured by liveatc.net.

Preliminary information from the NTSB indicates that at 8:25 PM EDT, the left wing tip of Air France flight 7 struck the left horizontal stabilizer of Comair flight 293 while the Comair airplane was taxiing to its gate. There were 485 passengers and 25 crew onboard the Airbus and 52 passengers and 4 crew onboard the CRJ. No injuries were reported on either aircraft.

The NTSB has requested the fight recorders (cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder) from both aircraft and will review the content of those devices as part of the investigation. Also, the NTSB will review the air traffic control tapes and ground movement radar data (ASDE-X). The damage sustained to both aircraft is still being assessed.

Parties to this investigation include the Federal Aviation Administration, Comair, and the Air Line Pilots Association. Also, accredited representatives from the French Bureau d'Enquetes et d'Analyses (BEA), the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB), and their advisors from Airbus, Air France, and Bombardier Aerospace, are assisting the investigation.

FMI: www.faa.gov, www.ntsb.gov