Two planes collided on the tarmac at LaGuardia Friday as the airport grappled with intense delays brought on by weather and staffing shortages, The Post has learned.
A United Airlines plane returning from Orlando was turning into its arrival gate when it clipped the tail of another United jet on the taxiway, a spokesperson for the airline said.
The clipped plane, which was waiting to be taxied for its journey to Houston, was stationary at the time.
“We all felt a bump during taxi to the runway but didn’t know it was another plane until the captain said it was,” a passenger, who declined to share their name, said.
A video obtained by The Post showed numerous emergency vehicles at the scene.
Both planes returned to the gate, and all passengers were deplaned.
There were no injuries reported among the two planes’ 328 passengers and 15 crew members.
Maintenance crews are evaluating the clipped plane for any malfunctions following the collision.
At the time of the collision, the Houston-bound plane was already running on a 90-minute delay, a delay that continued to grow through the night.
LaGuardia had grounded planes several hours earlier over intense winds, which had reached 45 mph.
Ground delays were running at an average of two hours and 15 minutes at LaGuardia, though some planes were delayed as much as five hours.
The National Weather Service issued a wind advisory through midnight.
Port Authority referred all queries about the incident to United Airlines.
LaGuardia Airport did not respond to a request for comment, and the FAA could not because of the government shutdown.
Airports across the country were already grappling with air traffic control staffing shortages, which Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy predicted would cause “disaster” if the shutdown continued into November and into the holidays.
Unpaid air traffic controllers may be forced to leave work to find a second job to pay their bills “and you’re going to have mass issues throughout the airspace,” he warned.
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