Two American Airlines Jets Involved In Separate Incidents At DFW
IRVING, Texas (CBS 11 NEWS) - American Airlines had two aircraft wind up in places they shouldn't have been at DFW Airport Monday morning.
The first was a flight that had just arrived from Mexico and was being towed to a gate at Terminal D.
"It was about 8:30 and I was sitting in front of the window along with the crew that was about to board on this," said Doug Thompson, a traveler who was waiting to board the plane for its next leg. "And I was glancing out at the plane coming in and out of the corner of your eye you could see it just all of a sudden stopped short. And you looked up to see why it stopped short and the wing was up against a concrete pillar."
The Airbus A319 was arriving at gate D40.
Because space there is very tight, airline representatives say all planes are towed to that particular gate rather than taxied in by the pilot. As the plane was pulled forward, its winglet - the vertical part of the wing - scraped a concrete pillar.
"I mean it looks like a small scrape to your car but its probably a million dollar error on a plane," Thompson said.
The plane was pushed back and then pulled up to the gate. No one was hurt. Travelers waiting to board the plane for its next flight were ushered to another plane with little delay.
"The good news is when they announced you're going to another plane," Thompson said. "The nervousness would have been we're going to go ahead and give this one a try. So, to watch it hit, its comforting to know they're going to take it off line."
Elsewhere at the airport the problem was keeping tires on the pavement. Service crews were taxing MD-80 to a hanger for maintenance when it somehow went off the taxiway and got stuck in the mud.
The plane was not in an area that affected airport traffic and no one was hurt.
(©2014 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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