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Comment by epolanski | Hacker News Reader

It is actually far from being that common.

No, it’s quite common. Planes collide on the ground all the time, at airports all over the world. Normally minor “oops” in ground handling, by the pilots but also can be pushers and such who are ferrying around airplanes. Runway entrance and exits are particularly hazardous and are marked that way.

What happens after, does the plane still fly? Are planes engineered to withstand this?

There is zero chance they're flying immediately after this.

I imagine there's a good chance that the plane could fly after this, but aviation is (rightfully) risk averse and expect it'll have a pass a full inspection before being cleared for flight again.

Depends on how much of the wing has buckled.

If it's just a wingtip Boeing sends a AOG (Airplane On Ground) team to repair it onsite. They remove the wing skin replace any ribs, spars, wiring, lighting, etc, that are damaged, before riveting a new skin over it.

You need to provide data behind this claim.

Not only you need major mistakes by multiple people and systems for two planes to touch while taxing, but two planes colliding even in an apparently minor way is enough to ground the planes for controls.

> Normally minor “oops” in ground handling

There is absolutely nothing minor or common about a collision of airliners on a runway at a major airport.

Similar mistakes have resulted in serious incidents. There will be a full investigation of this.

But.. uncommon enough that people should care about it world wide each time it happens? If this happened at my nearest airport, I would expect to see it in the local paper. I definitely wouldn't expect people more than a couple hundred miles away from me to hear about it.

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