San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
PLANE AND BUS COLLIDE AT LOS ANGELES AIRPORT, INJURING FIVE, OFFICIALS SAY
Five people were injured Friday night after an American Airlines plane struck a shuttle bus at Los Angeles International Airport, officials said.
The plane, an Airbus A321, had no passengers and was being towed on a taxiway around 10 p.m. when it hit a bus that was transporting passengers between terminals, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
Emergency medical workers treated five people who were involved in the “low-speed” collision, the Los Angeles Fire Department said.
Four people were hospitalized. The tug driver who had been towing the jet was taken to the hospital in moderate condition, and the bus driver and two bus passengers were transported in fair condition, the Fire Department said. Only one person was on the plane, a worker, who declined to be taken to the hospital after receiving treatment, the department said.
The jet was being towed from a gate to a parking area. Other airport operations remained normal, the airport said in a statement.
The FAA said that it would investigate the collision, which follows a recent spate of unusual incidents at major airports.
On Feb. 4, two airplanes narrowly avoided a collision at Austin-bergstrom International Airport in Texas after a Fedex cargo plane aborted its landing on the same runway that a Southwest Airlines flight had been cleared to take off from.
The day before, a United Airlines Boeing 787 that was being towed clipped the wing of a parked United plane, a Boeing 757-200, at Newark Liberty International Airport, the FAA said. And last month, at Kennedy International Airport in New York, a Delta Air Lines plane had to abort its takeoff after an American Airlines plane crossed about 1,000 feet in front of it, the FAA said.