A driverless pickup truck being operated by United Airlines ground crews caused "substantial" damage to a SkyWest Airlines CRJ200 at the Chicago O'Hare international airport on 2 November, according to a preliminary incident report released by the US National Transportation Safety Board on 22 November.
Flight 1020 (N709BR), with 34 passengers and three crew bound for Moline, Illinois, had pushed back from the gate at 10:27 am CDT and moved out of the immediate area to allow an inbound aircraft to access the gate when the incident occurred. There were no injuries.
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"As the airplane began to move the flight crew saw the pickup truck moving on the ramp, so they stopped the airplane," says the NTSB. "The Ford Ranger pickup truck backed into the left side of the nose of the plane."
The driver told the NTSB that he had left the vehicle on the ramp with the engine running. "When he returned to where he left the vehicle, it was gone," the driver told investigators.
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news
