At Los Angeles International Airport in California on Friday night, an American Airlines airplane collided with a shuttle bus. This was the most recent of several strange events at busy airports over the past four weeks.
At around 10 pm, an Airbus A321 that was being dragged on a taxiway had no passengers on board. The Federal Aviation Administration said that it struck a bus carrying passengers between terminals.
According to the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD), five persons who were engaged in the “low-speed” crash were treated by emergency medical personnel.
The LAFD said that four people were sent to the hospital for treatment. The bus driver, two passengers and the tug driver who had been pulling the aircraft was brought to the hospital with injuries. The only passenger aboard the aircraft was a worker who, after obtaining medical attention at the site of the accident, declined to be brought to the hospital.
LAX tweeted that the airplane was hauled from a gate to a parking lot, and all other activities continued as usual. LAX offers free shuttle buses that transfer travelers between terminals at the airport, according to its official website.
Soon after the event, pictures, and videos from the scene started to circulate on social media.
The FAA announced that it will investigate the crash, which comes after a recent string of strange events at US airports.
In January, at JFK International Airport in NYC, a Delta plane was forced to abort takeoff when an American Airline plane crossed too close to it. The National Transportation Safety Board had to subpoena the pilots of the plane because they declined to share electronic data from the flight.
On February 3, at Newark Liberty International Airport, a United Airlines plane being towed clipped the wing of another United plane that was parked. No injuries were reported.
After a FedEx cargo jet aborted its landing on the same route that a Southwest Airlines flight had been given permission to take off from on February 4, two aircraft barely escaped colliding at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Texas.