Passengers who were aboard two Boeing jets at London Heathrow spent the night in hotels after their planes were involved in a collision on the ground.
No one was hurt in the incident.
Collisions on the ground are far from rare and, as well as being unsettling for passengers, usually result in time-consuming inspections and repairs for airlines.
Here’s everything you need to know.
What happened in the Heathrow prang?
Reports say a Boeing 777 operated by Korean Air, due to depart for Seoul at 7.35pm, struck an Icelandair 757 that had landed at 7.43pm and was waiting for clearance to approach the gate at Terminal 2.
The wing of the 777 appears to have clipped the tail of the 757. Pictures on social media show a notch taken out of the tail.
What is the usual procedure after a collision like this?
Aircraft involved in a “clip” like this will not fly until they have been inspected and, if necessary, repaired.
Passengers are offloaded, return through passport control and collect their baggage.
Under European air passengers’ rights rules, they are entitled to be flown to their final destination as soon as possible. While they are waiting, they must be provided with hotel accommodation and meals at the expense of the airline.
Because both carriers in this case are based outside the UK and do not have established engineering facilities at Heathrow, this could be a slow process.
Will passengers be able to claim compensation?
Those aboard the Icelandair plane will not be able to claim the £350 stipulated by air passengers’ rights rules because the airline can blame “extraordinary circumstances”. It remains to be see if the Korean Air passengers will be able to claim the £520 per-person compensation (for a longer flight) if it emerges that the airline was at fault.
How often do such accidents happen?
Given the high costs and disruption involved, alarmingly often; though prangs between two planes are less frequent than collisions involving ground vehicles and aircraft.
In December 2021, for example, a LOT Polish Airlines Boeing 737 Max at Heathrow airport was struck by a catering truck.
Usually, damage is caused by moving vehicles striking stationary aircraft. But in August 2022, an Air Senegal Airbus A319 hit a lorry during pushback from a stand at Barcelona airport (not quite, as one tabloid headline insisted, “Giant passenger plane crashes into lorry during take-off”).
Bizarre accidents can also happen. At Gatwick in 1988, for example, a Dan-Air plane was…
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