A aircraft touchdown at Newark Liberty International Airport hit a streetlight and a tractor-trailer on the close by highway on Sunday, injuring the truck’s driver, in line with the New Jersey State Police.
The United Airlines Boeing 767, flying from Venice, Italy, was going greater than 160 miles an hour when it crossed over the New Jersey Turnpike, simply outdoors of the airport, in line with flight monitoring web site Flightradar24.
A preliminary investigation exhibits a tire from the aircraft’s touchdown gear and the underside of the aircraft “collided with a pole and a tractor-trailer. The pole then struck a Jeep,” New Jersey State Police spokesman SFC Charles Marchan mentioned in a press release. “The driver of the tractor-trailer sustained non-life-threatening injuries and was transported to an area hospital.”
Patrick Oyulu was driving on the highway when he noticed the low flying aircraft and felt an enormous gust of wind go over him.
“It was just coming directly in front of the truck … I just saw smoke and debris,” he advised NCS. “I think (the truck was) trying to evasively maneuver out of its way or something, but they were cornered.”
More than 200 passengers and 10 crew members had been on board the aircraft, the airline mentioned.
“The aircraft landed safely, taxied to the gate normally and no passengers or crew were injured,” United mentioned in a press release. “Our maintenance team is evaluating damage to the aircraft.”
“We will conduct a rigorous flight safety investigation into the incident and our crew has been removed from service as part of the process,” United mentioned.
The National Transportation Safety Board is sending an investigator to Newark and will analyze the cockpit voice recorder and flight knowledge recorder as a part of their investigation, the agency announced.
Runway 29, the place the aircraft landed, begins lower than 400 ft from the sting of the busy New Jersey Turnpike. It isn’t all the time used, however when wind circumstances are proper, it can see quite a few landings, which may startle drivers as planes move at low altitudes over the highway.
The pilots and air site visitors management didn’t look like conscious the aircraft had struck the sunshine pole upon touchdown, in line with recordings of air site visitors management communications captured by LiveATC.net.
The 767 was given directions to taxi to the gate as different plane continued to land on the identical runway.
NCS’s Amanda Musa, Sarah Dewberry and Sneha Dhandapani contributed to this report.