Two planes collide on LaGuardia Airport taxiway

NEW YORK — Two regional flights operated by a subsidiary of Delta Air Lines collided on a LaGuardia Airport taxiway Wednesday evening, injuring one person, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said.

The Federal Aviation Administration said Thursday that it was investigating the accident and that its cause remained unclear.

A Bombardier CRJ-900 jet operated by Endeavor Air, the Delta subsidiary, was preparing to take off when it struck another Bombardier that was heading to a gate at 9:58 p.m., according to a statement from the Port Authority, which manages LaGuardia in Queens.

A Delta spokesperson said Thursday that the company was aware of the photos showing “components of wings and fuselage” on the ground but he did not describe the damage to the planes.

Delta said its preliminary information suggested that the wing of the departing jet, operating as Endeavor Air Flight 5155, had made contact with the fuselage of the arriving jet, Flight 5047.

The pilot of 5047 told airport ground control over the radio that “their right wing clipped our nose.” He said that there was damage to his plane’s windscreen, the front window of the cockpit, according to the recording.

A passenger on the departing plane, Thomas Hindman, who is a student pilot at Kent State University, took a video showing the moment his plane was struck.

“Suddenly, we felt two big jolts,” Hindman, 18, who runs a YouTube account dedicated to planes, said in an interview.

The FAA said in a preliminary statement that “air traffic control instructed Flight 5155 to hold short and yield to the other aircraft.” At the same time, the agency said, Endeavor Air Flight 5047 was heading to its gate.

The National Transportation Safety Board confirmed Thursday afternoon that there was damage to the right wing on Flight 5155, and to the nose and windscreen on Flight 5047.

The NTSB sent a team of 10 to LaGuardia Airport, it said. The flight recorders from both airplanes are being analyzed at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, it said.

Delta apologized to the passengers on the flights, who were taken by bus to a terminal at the airport. Hindman said passengers disembarked about midnight, after police officers and firefighters finished inspecting the exterior of the plane.

They were given hotel accommodations and meals, the airline said, and were booked on flights for Thursday. The airline said it was fully cooperating with authorities in the investigation.

Hindman said Delta had sent him a $1,000 travel voucher and a promise that it would issue a full refund on the flight.

Delta said one flight attendant had reported a minor injury in the low-speed collision, and that no passengers were hurt.

Flight 5155, carrying two pilots, two flight attendants and 28 passengers, had been scheduled to depart to Roanoke, Virginia. Flight 5047 had arrived from Charlotte, North Carolina, carrying two pilots, two flight attendants and 57 passengers.

Airlines often use the CRJ-900, a single-aisle plane that can carry as many as 90 passengers, on shorter routes.

The LaGuardia collision happened in the first 24 hours of a government shutdown that has disrupted federal services and sent many federal employees home without pay.

“I was thinking a little bit about the air traffic control shortage due to the shutdown and the preexisting shortage in the New York area,” said Hindman, who was headed home for fall break.

He said the first leg of his journey back to Virginia, a flight into LaGuardia from Cleveland, was delayed about 45 minutes because there was so much air traffic.

Air traffic controllers are working through the shutdown because they are considered essential workers, and the spending impasse was not expected to have a major immediate effect on air travel.

But the shutdown could become more disruptive to travelers the longer it persists. Because about a quarter of the nearly 45,000 people who work at the FAA are being furloughed during the shutdown, some air services related to air traffic safety will be put on hold. And the FAA said in August that it expected to hire at least 8,900 air traffic controllers by 2028, an effort that would be stalled by the government shutdown.

A critical shortage of air traffic controllers has contributed to aviation accidents and near-misses at several U.S. airports in recent years. In May, flights at Newark Airport in New Jersey were delayed for up to seven hours because there were not enough air traffic controllers scheduled to work.

Hindman said he was a little more nervous on the second flight.

“I wasn’t leaning back in my seat, like, ‘Oh, the pilot’s got this,’” he said. “I was a little more on edge.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.