Heavyweight airliners — including Donald Trump’s — clip their wings in minor South Florida airport incidents
Twice in 10 days, big airliners — including a Boeing 757 belonging to former President Donald Trump — clipped a wing at a South Florida international airport. Trump's plane touched a private corporate jet while taxiing at Palm Beach International. Separately, the wing of a Boeing 747 cargo plane operated by Atlas Air brushed an outlying building at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood. No injuries were reported.
In the space of 10 days, two of South Florida’s international airports have been the scenes of big airliners — including the Boeing 757 used by former President Donald Trump — involved in separate wing-clipping incidents while they rumbled their way to remote parking places.
The Federal Aviation Administration acknowledged Wednesday it is investigating both episodes, neither of which involved any injuries.
The most recent incident involved an Atlas Air Boeing 747 cargo jet. Its right wingtip, the FAA said in a statement, “struck a hangar at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport” on Tuesday afternoon.
The airline’s Flight 9330 was taxiing when the incident occurred, the agency said. It was in an area of the airport “where the FAA does not direct aircraft.”
A photograph taken by the South Florida Sun Sentinel showed the right side of the four-engine plane in close proximity to the abandoned Signature Flight Support hangar, at 4050 SW 11th Terrace.
Atlas did not immediately respond to an emailed request seeking comment. Based in White Plains, N.Y., the global airline operates freight and chartered passenger flights to six continents. Its passenger planes have flown the Miami Dolphins, according to the carrier’s website.
‘Fender bender’
Early on May 12, the Trump Boeing 757 also was taxiing after it landed safely at 1:20 a.m. at Palm Beach International Airport. One of its winglets brushed “a parked and unoccupied corporate jet,” according to an FAA statement.
It was not known if Trump, who had campaigned in New Jersey the previous day, was aboard.
As with the Atlas incident, the 757 was moving “in an area of the airport where the FAA does not direct aircraft,” the agency said.
In its statement, the FAA did not identify the plane’s ownership. But the agency’s public notice of the incident did list the plane’s registration number, N757AF, an aircraft owned by DJT Operations I LLC, a company the former president owned and resigned from in early 2017 after he entered the White House.
The corporate jet that was struck is registered to VistaJet, a private charter firm, the FAA said. The public report contained no information about damage to either plane.
The West Palm Beach incident was not the first for the Trump Boeing 757.
In 2018, one of its winglets was struck by the tail of a taxiing Bombardier plane operated by Global Express at LaGuardia Airport in New York. The Trump jet was parked and unoccupied at the time, according to records.
A news report by The Associated Press at the time called the New York episode a “fender bender.”