A United Airlines aircraft landing at Newark Airport came in too low on Sunday afternoon and struck both a light pole and – even more seriously – a bakery truck, resulting in the driver requiring hospitalization.

The NTSB is currently investigating this accident and what led to this flight approaching EWR with insufficient altitude to clear all obstacles before reaching the airport perimeter.

This is an extremely serious incident, even though no injuries or fatalities were reported from the United flight, as we can all vividly remember how the Asiana flight crashed at San Francisco airport, as it came in at way too low an altitude when it crashed into the sea barrier.

The FAA issued the following brief statement:

If the wheels of the aircraft were able to hit this bakery delivery truck, then it was just a difference of a few meters, and the aircraft would have slammed into the multi-land turnpike itself, which is a very unsettling thing to think about because that would have ended in a catastrophe.

Can you imagine this aircraft smashing into a busy highway?

According to CBS the United Airlines flight in question just arrived from Venice, Italy, when this incident occurred:

The investigation will most likely focus primarily on the action in the cockpit, and I wouldn’t be surprised if pilot error is ultimately found to be the cause of what happened here.

To come in this low is obviously not normal; hundreds of flights land at Newark every day, and you have never heard of a plane swiping a delivery truck off the road and cutting some lantern poles. Something went seriously wrong in the final phase of this flight.

Conclusion

United Airlines is causing headlines after one of their flights that was about to land at Newark Airport on Sunday afternoon had not enough altitude and collided with a lantern pole and a delivery truck upon approach.

The FAA is currently investigating the accident, which caused injuries to the driver of the bakery delivery truck as well as the public utilities. United didn’t say if and how severely the aircraft was damaged in this collision.

The dashcam of the truck caught the collision, and the impact was quite bad. Thankfully, the driver survived this accident without significant injuries.

Source