Southwest backs into JetBlue
 

One more time, really, are ground ops soo difficult.



Jets make contact in Boston; no injuries reported

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I wonder how much of the fuel savings attributed to winglets is offset by the increased cost of repairs in close quarter contacts?

The ground crew company's insurance will bear the cost of repair, while the airline foots fuel bills. That makes the answer simple.

Since the "ground crew company" and the "airline" are one and the same. The airlines insurance is going to pay for it all.

Now that Southwest and Alaska are starting to install the "Scimitar" winglets on their 73's which feature a downward pointing winglet in addition to the upward swept Aviation Partners winglet I wonder if we are going to see a lot more of these "Ramp-rash" type incidents.

That downward pointing winglet is just begging to be hit by ground equipment or vice versa.

Clearly someone's taken the whole "Boeing vs. Airbus" thing far too literally... :}

(I'll get my coat...)

Congested ramps, shorter turn-around times, less people on the ramp (they cost too much :E), more and more single aisle A/C equipped with winglets (Boeing) or sharklets (Airbus) ... what was not noticed before (a wing passing underneath an horizontal tail plane) will be more and more a serious incident :(

1/ the 737 did not "back into the A320"
2/ "wing passing under the horizontal tailplane". What? I hope not

You can see from the photo the idiot driving the tug screwed up and pushed the 737 too far off the centre....the main gear are around 40' off the line....

Thousands of push backs all around the world everyday, someone somewhere is bound to cockup.

Virgin 737 was pushed into a Jetstar A320 in YMML a while ago too.

I don't think he's suggesting that that is OK, just that it happened. Looking at the pic, if SW hadn't had winglets, "they" would have got away with it.

My post was a bit ambiguous but Capn Bloggs got it right.
I am thinking that it was happening before but people were getting away with it because there was no damage to report.
And of course, when it happened, that was obviously wrong !!!

A similar incident happened in March 2014 in AEP when a Gol 737 clipped the RH THS of a LAN 320 : ASN Aircraft incident 04-MAR-2014 Airbus A320-233 LV-BET

Howdy fellas, yes sorry I wasn't trying to say that, more like wow I hope wings didn't regularly pass under tails.....

And cudos to the China Southern A330 crew zipping by my window this morning without the FO once looking out to see if his wingtip was all clear.............crazy

A few years ago, immediately following the wedding of Mr. D. Trump and the latest Mrs. Trump, I watched at PBI as his wingletted B727 whizzed by unmistakeably marked with 'TRUMP' in five foot high gold lettering below the crown, clipping the horizontal tailplane of a Lockheed Jetstar parked on the ramp.

Severe embarrassment as they taxied back, while the happy couple were ingloriously delayed a few hours on their mission of wedded bliss!

The second departure was a less hurried affair.