UPS Cargo Jet and Copa 737 Collide on Miami Taxiway. FAA Says Controllers Told UPS to Give Way

A UPS cargo jet and a Copa Airlines passenger plane hit each other on a taxiway at Miami International Airport on Saturday night, Nov. 14, at about 9:15 p.m. Two people were treated at the scene for minor injuries. Neither needed to go to a hospital.

The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating.

What happened on the taxiway

Copa Flight 427, a Boeing 737-800, had just landed from Panama City and was taxiing to its gate. UPS Flight 358, a Boeing 767-300F freighter, was taxiing for departure to Bogotá, Colombia.

The two aircraft met at the intersection of two taxiways. According to the FAA, the wingtip of the Copa 737 struck the nose of the UPS 767.

The FAA said air traffic controllers had instructed the UPS crew to give way to the Copa flight.

Radio audio captured the aftermath. The Copa pilot called in: "Somebody hit us." The controller then asked, "UPS 358, did you hit that aircraft?"

A UPS pilot answered: "Yeah, we went too far and then he... he clipped us with the wing." The Copa pilot later reported, "It seems that we are missing the left wingtip."

Injuries and damage

Greg Chin, communications director for Miami International Airport, said two patients were treated on scene by Miami-Dade Fire Rescue for minor injuries and did not require transport. Fire Rescue described the collision as "minor."

Photos from the scene show damage to the nose of the UPS freighter. The Copa jet lost its left wingtip. Neither the FAA nor the airlines have published a full damage assessment.

Copa had 166 passengers and six crew aboard, according to a published account of the incident. All left the aircraft safely.

Chin said flights were being routed to other taxiways and that airport operations were not affected.

What UPS and the FAA have said

UPS has not assigned blame publicly. Its statement reads: "We are aware of an incident involving one of our aircraft on the ground in Miami. Our crew is safe, and we are committed to working with authorities to determine what happened. The safety of our employees and the public is our highest priority."

The FAA's statement on the collision itself was short: the wingtip of a Copa Boeing 737 struck the nose of a UPS Boeing 767 while the airplanes were taxiing. The agency confirmed the instruction to give way.

The radio exchange and the FAA's account point the same way. The investigation will decide the formal cause, including how the 767 ended up in the 737's path after the controller's instruction. No findings have been released.

A rough week for U.S. air travel

The collision came a day after the FAA issued a rare nationwide ground stop on Friday. ABC News reported the stop lasted more than four hours. Thousands of flights were canceled on Saturday as airlines repositioned aircraft and crews, and Miami was still dealing with delays and cancellations when the taxiway collision happened.

No source has linked the two events. The Post noted it was not clear whether the collision had anything to do with the residual effects of the ground stop.

Federal officials have given different technical explanations for Friday's outage. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said an upgrade replacing aging copper communication wires with high-speed fiber-optic cables caused problems. Federal officials also said switches and routers became overloaded with data, creating inconsistencies in radar and communications systems.

Duffy warned Friday night that operations would be slow to normalize. FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said Saturday the U.S. air travel schedule should be back to normal by the end of Sunday, Nov. 15.

Miami's recent record

This is not the first serious ground incident at MIA in recent months. A little over two months ago, an Amazon cargo jet overran a runway there, struck two vehicles and killed five people. A federal report found an air traffic controller had failed to warn the pilots about windy conditions when clearing them to land.

The two events are different: one involved a runway overrun and a controller error, the other a collision between moving aircraft on a taxiway. Both involved cargo carriers at the same airport.

What comes next

The FAA has not said how long its investigation will take. Open questions include why the 767 went too far into the 737's path after controllers told it to give way, and what damage both aircraft sustained. Bedford's Sunday deadline for normal schedules will show how quickly Miami and the rest of the system recover from the ground stop.