When you’re driving on the highway, you don’t generally expect that you’re at risk of being hit by a commercial aircraft. Yet that’s exactly what just happened. I first covered this yesterday, but would like to provide an update, as some more details have been made available.
Continue reading: Yikes: United Boeing 767 Strikes Truck & Light Pole On Newark Approach
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Weird, I searched for the 'HUH?!?' in the United article and couldn't find it. Must be a formatting glitch. Fascinating how 'rams' and 'rams again' is the language for one incident, but a plane clipping a truck on the New Jersey Turnpike is just... contact with a light pole. Journalism is a craft.
Accidents like this show why preferential training / hiring / promotion of professionals who meet minimum standards but are still objectively less qualified / competent / etc than others of non-preferred demographics is so corrosive. This may or may not have been a "DEI" pilot flying. And even if it was, there might even be an innocent explanation - ILS malfunction, 5G interference, something wrong with the avionics, etc.
But for the time being, the default assumption is DEI.
And if you happen to think that as long as a professional meets minimum standards, then all is well.... and if there are problems, then the minimum standards themselves are at fault and should be adjusted...
... would you choose to be operated on by any surgeon who met minimum standards? or a surgeon that was the best that the training program could recruit and then the hospital could subsequently hire?
And if you're willing to sacrifice your own life for your political principles, just imagine that it's your child on the operating table.
Easy fix. Just cut EWR capacity further.
No widebody landings on 29
the airport was never designed for the operation that UA is trying to push through it
I read this blog from the sidelines and never commented, but this Tim guy is effing insufferable!
DL's cancellations are mostly in ATL.
UA can just land its widebodies there.
or teach its pilots to quit taking out ground objects
Blaming a demographic category without evidence skips the entire investigative process and replaces it with pointless speculation. There’s no data or hard evidence showing that diversity initiatives in aviation reduce safety.
Surgery often relies on one human’s capability and aviation is built on team decision making involving multiple pilots, ATC, redundant avionics, etc so that’s really not a logical comparison.
I did my homework before my hip replacement and ensured my surgeon was board certified with no active or past actions on his license. Finding all that out doesn’t mean that maybe he’s not secretly kinda sloppy or might be hungover or any other of the thousands of factors that could have played into success which have nothing to do with whether he was the best candidate ever or a middle of the road doctor. (It went fine of course)
Assuming DEI with no evidence says a lot more about YOU than the pilots’ qualifications.
...all I got from that long boring comment is that you got a hip replacement, which has nothing to to with piloting a plane!
yeah.
Capt. Wee Way Too Low
FO.... can you give me those taxi instructions for the 99th time.
and to think the only hazard at JFK is AA pilots cutting their 777 in front of you on takeoff
Well it does. Proving once again if it wasn't for DEIA, two men who obviously got their jobs because of their skin colour would not have been flying that plane.
Welcome to the world of the Walter Mitty commenters herein. No nothing, seen nothing, done nothing, post a load of nothing for the consumption of the nobodies.
Worth a click though! Right Ben?
joined by spelling and grammar champions, right?
"No nothing, seen nothing, done nothing,"
Whoa is this proof that Tim Dunn is the one using guest accounts to troll? Especially the ones that frequently post the racist comments?
Methinks he forgot to logout of his account before he posted this.
How the hell is the default assumption “DEI”? This is just coded racism that folks tell themselves to feel better than admitting anytime *anything* goes wrong is *must* be because of a minority or woman. For the record, both pilots in this case were white.
The default assumptions are incorrect instruments, incorrect glideslope, or bad piloting. MAGA racists need to stop hiding behind blaming DEI for everything and realize their own mediocrity is their own fault.
The literal dumbest guys I met in medical school were entitled rich white guys whose dads were physicians and who got in for that fact (and probably some fat checks to the school’s alumni fund).
You want to talk about meritocracy? How about you start there.
@Timtamtrak - I'm not blaming any demographic category. I'm saying that treating people preferentially based on immutable innate characteristics is wrong. That's all.
Imagine that if the name of the street you grew up on had an "e" as the 3rd letter, you were given preferential treatment all the way through. Special programs, special scholarships. Special recruiting to aviation school. Which is all very nice, especially if you turn out to have aptitude for being a pilot. But no fear, even if not, you will get all the extra help you need, retakes after retakes, etc, until you barely scrape past the minimum standards. Would it be any wonder then that after such a program were instituted people might wonder if future aviation accidents could be caused by a person who grew up on Pleasant Way Rd?
I will admit that I'm aware of no data or hard evidence that diversity initiatives in aviation reduce safety. Totally fair. But imagine that such data / hard evidence existed to your satisfaction - then what would be your response?
Tim, I didn’t think that you would fall for that old chestnut, one was expecting a nobody would bite, you know …. an ORD or an Eskimo type …. 🙂
@Dan - Yes, I am against the "legacy" system. And I'm also against preferential treatment for the relatives of large donors to universities; it's just "fancy" bribery and corruption.
Twitter just gets more and more unusable every week. I can't full screen the video
Other sources saying that the landing gear did not hit the truck. The gear hit the light pole, and part of the light pole hit the truck.
You know, we all get the UA and Kirby hate you have. As I’ve mentioned to you before, when you go to this level, it makes it hard to take ANYTHING that you say seriously.
Are DL pilots better? How so? Can widebody’s not land on 29? Do you have aircraft performance numbers to support your claim?
The hate which you do on every UA post is so unbecoming. We get it. When is UA entering Chapter 11?DL pilots are farrrrr from perfect. Fate is the hunter. Ask me how I know. It’s a shame because you’re knowledgeable and can actually inform folks on how things are going in the industry…..
@Simon If such data existed I’d probably say the narrative on hiring should be changed. Since it doesn’t, I don’t see the need to assume anything or make vast sweeping changes, even outside of aviation.
History shows it’s usually the folks from Tom Metzger Parkway, not Pleasant Way Rd, that cause international incidents.
Someone's going to say Trump did it.
Then the next person would yap about TDS.
Everyday life in America.
Out of all the things that never happened this one never happened the most lmao
Yesterday's flight was canceled, so the crew had an extra weekend night in Venice.
Italy can do that to you, I suppose.
The “legacy” system misappropriates university places from students who have earned them, just as race-based admissions do. The system we have here in Australia isn’t perfect, but if you get the test results you get into the course, and it doesn’t matter what race you are, how wealthy your family is, or whether your parents are alumni.
Current consensus reporting is apparently that the light pole hit a Jeep, but the truck was hit by the underside and tire of the aircraft.
For the actual aircraft to hit the truck it would have been appreciably lower than to hit a light post (or two)
I see that they do have shorter light poles than normal there - is that the first occasion in recent times that those have actually prevented a disaster?
I didn't expect that you would make so many spelling and grammar mistakes all at the same time
It is doubtful that it was actually that pairing but Ben is correct that UA seems to have a lot more landing incidents than AA and DL - and even WN seems to have fixed their problems.
The Port Authority has invested a lot of money (backed by the FAA) for the world's best equipment including landing lights and electronic glide slope indicators on the runway and inside the captain.
Sometimes, you have to make the call that you are too low and need to go around.
straight down the runway. and if you are too low, you go around rather than take out off airport traffic
This could have been far worst. A plane hitting objects upon landing. That poor truck driver. Looked as happy as could be until.....
@Mel - do you have any evidence for this? Why are you asking if it’s an “Asian pilot”?
of course it could have been worse - sometimes luck saves us.
The FAA has to be looking at the broader issue of whether runway 29 is safe not just for aviation but for the world that exists outside of airport borders.
There have been times when the FAA has moved the threshold of runways to increase safety levels and that just might have to happen here if UA - esp. widebodies - can't seem to avoid getting too low on approach to 29. High winds are precisely why airport capacity would have otherwise been cut on the two parallel runways. If the option to keep capacity up is no longer safe, then the FAA has to restrict the use of that option.
and those that argue that the plane didn't really hit the truck - it was just the light pole - don't fly unless UA and the FAA can explain how a truck that was just minding its business got hit either directly by the plane or indirectly by objects the plane should not have hit
@simon - why is the default assumption DEI? Like why is that what you’re jumping too with precisely zero evidence? And even if the pilot wasn’t - shock horror - a white straight man, that doesn’t mean they weren’t eminently qualified for the role.
There was ZERO mention of DEI in the article or the comments side from the (clearly) leftists using it to hate people. YOU my friends, are the ACTUAL racists, bringing up stuff not even mentioned.
@justindev- you know nothing of the skin colour of those pilots or how they got their jobs. Is it your assertion that any pilot who isn’t white is less qualified? Because there’s a word for that sweeping assumption.
@Jerry - as far as I can tell many of the people bringing up DEI in the comments are jumping to conclusions and using it to denigrate non white people. How is that “clearly leftists”?
@James - because any preferential treatment based on immutable innate characteristics is wrong! You just happen to like which groups are currently being advantaged. I suspect you'd be back on my side of no preferential treatment if groups you don't root for started getting preferential treatment.
You all realize DEI is not primarily a hiring framework anyway, right? It's a workplace stability framework for people already hired. This whole anti-DEI movement originates in racially motivated right-wing propaganda and conflates it with affirmative action policies that no longer exist and are actually now illegal anyway. If you're going to complain about DEI, at least understand what it is fully first...and perhaps realize you're describing equal opportunity frameworks which are somewhat separate. With either framework, competence and qualifications override. Again, quota-based systems are illegal. So, stop making up crap and making this country a miserable place to be in.
Whatever it was, the guy in the truck got lucky. If he was just a foot ahead while driving, he likely would have ended up with worse injuries.
Ship #3066 was not the aircraft of the previously canceled flight.
On Sunday 5/3 there were two United flights from VCE to EWR. The regular daily flight (ship #3066) the aircraft involved in the incident and flight UA3047 (canceled flight from the day before) operated by ship #3060.
The crew involved in the incident was the crew that flew ship# 3060 to Venice on Friday as UA170.
DEI strikes again I bet! People getting jobs or being promoted just cuz of their group! It will be the death of us ALL! The people on here defending DEI are the problem in today's world!
Agreed, Jason. Thank you for calling it out for what it is. Whenever I see folks misusing 'DEI,' or 'low-IQ,' or 'thug,' or whatever the new bigot-buzzword is, it's clearly a racist dog-whistle.
Probably best to avoid driving on the Jersey Turnpike until DUI hire Sean Duffy is gone.
Dear, dear Tim, nitpicking grammar is usually what people do when they can’t counter the point.
You took my baited line and now you are looking to cause trouble. If it is trouble you seek then you are rattling the right cage.
However, choose your battleground very carefully Tim, old bean. If you choose spelling and grammar of the English language, then you are on a hiding to nothing sunshine.
I have ignited the blue touch paper, you would be best advised to retire gracefully without delay.
Reading comments from some of the frequent posters, I have couple questions:
Who raised you?
Who taught you to be such an awful person?
Something tells me the Venn diagram of those folks and the folks who believe Jesus was white (as opposed to Middle Eastern) is a very tight circle.
Disgusting comment. You have been conditioned to become a racist - assuming that any non-white person you see in any role must have gotten there as a result of DEI (despite the abundance of mediocre white men in positions of power - hell, running half the airlines!). How sad for you.
Correct. Same folks that have on their Twitter bio: Follower of Christ, Good, Worthy, Righteous.
It really is the Christian Crusade 21st Century.
Quite right, some people on here - an aviation blog is all - have said the most awful things and knowingly jump to ridiculous conclusions to push a political point. It's gross.
@James - do you have some inside knowledge on this crash the rest of us don't have? Or are you just jumping to conclusions? And even if the pilots were not straight white men, is it your assumption that they must therefore be less qualified? That white men, simply by being white and male, must be better? Gross commentary on your part.
@Simon - again, why are you assuming this crash has anything to do with DEI? You're the one who introduced this no evidence. There is also nothing to suggest some pilots have qualified with lesser skills than others.
and others draw all kinds of conclusions that are not at all supported by the facts not only of this case but of what people actually write.
That is social media at its very worst.
Steve, go on then, I’ll ask, to whomever are you actually addressing your questions?
For those of us who live on the right side of the pond, also, those who prefer Oxford English, Tim Dunn’s post below should read:
“Others draw all kinds of conclusions that are not supported at all by the facts of this case, nor by what people actually write.
That is social media at its very worst.”
Is that what you meant to say Tim? The correct use of English grammar, spelling and sentence structure, yes?
So they were the crew that left Newark five and a half hours late. Was that because of a maintenance issue? Radar not working, or something like that?
And before that, it came from Houston, leaving two hours late. Maybe weather.
Look up the required runway length for a 767-400ER to land on. It is more than the available runway length of Runway 29 in EWR. The fact that 767 and 777 aircraft land on that runway is insane. Somebody needs more training.
if the runway is too short for the aircraft that UA is landing on it, then the FAA needs to step in. that is what aviation regulators do.
and the winds were high right down the runway. Be sure you adjust for the winds when calculating allowable runway length.
doesn't change that runway 29 should probably not be used for widebodies and the FAA may very well come to that conclusion; it is just too close to the end of the airport and adjacent other public use facilities.
so you play on Ben's site in the middle of the night on that side of the Atlantic?
or were you here "in the colonies" at the time you made your post that was full of grammar errors even as you condemned others for their content?
more importantly, is not being religous, according to Steve, a license to be bad or does being religious just provide license to call others hypocrites for doing things that you "think" you are incapable of doing?
sort of like "people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones"
@Joe - the required landing distance is 5905.51 feet - https://www.ultimatespecs.com/aircraft-specs/boeing/boeing-767-400er-1997
Runway 11/29 at EWR is 6,725 feet long. So it's doable but this may explain why they were too low on final, if the plan was to touch the first brick of the runway.
Since when has it ever been grammatically correct to start a sentence with a lowercase letter or an ‘and’?
In the BBC TV Series; Only Fools and Horses, Del boy (The star) had a favourite saying when things went wrong …. “What a plonker Rodney”. Tim, you are acting much like a Rodney, don’t you know?
Yet another Tim Dun post so full of grammatical errors that even a kindergarten child would not make. What a Rodney he is for not recognising the errors of his own ways.
What a fool I have been for attempting to defend what has become an indefensible subject of everyone’s scorn. Tim, wake up lad and smell the coffee, yes?
Blimey Tim, you are a stereotypical glasshouse resident who is constantly throwing stones. I shake my head in disbelief at your audacity.
the fool is the one that can't even spell my name right.
walk away. You lost the debate a long time ago.
You're supposed to be in bed if you are really "on the other side of the pond"
I have many landings on Rwy 29 at EWR. You'll never land long or short if you just make sure you're going over the bridge at 800 feet. It gives you a reasonable facsimile of 3 deg glidepath.
Nowhere in the article was DEI mentioned, but it was LEFT WING posters who immediately raised it. So the actual racists here are the Dems. Talk about irony. It's completely understandable that Dems think this way. After all, the KKK was founded by Democrats, they implemented Jim Crow laws, and they fought against passage of the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s. Thank goodness Lincoln emancipated the slaves and modern day Republicans got the Civil Rights Act passed. These are unfortunate facts for modern progressives, but they are indisputable facts. History remembers the truth.
I take great delight that I rocked your day - w/ a coule of comments about the English language.
It is true.
and you aren't really on the other side of the pond.
You just live here and still fake poor American English.
I have had fun today. 🙂
Runway 29 is extremely short for a heavy jet in my opinion. I have few types but no 767 experience. I have never landed anything bigger than an A320 on runway 29 EWR, it's doable, but tight. I have landed on runway 29 dozens of times in a regional jet and it still feels quite short, even in a small jet. Google quotes the minimum landing distance required in a B767 somewhere around 5500' feet. The published runway data for EWR shows a typical three degree glide path resulting in touchdown with 5541 on runway 11 EWR. Runway 29 has no ILS, so no glide path touchdown distance is published, but 29 is the inverse of 11 and 29 has a threshold that is displaced about 225 feet, meaning 225 shorter, so a normal touchdown following a normal three degree glide path approach, crossing the threshold at standard height of 60 feet means an aircraft would only have 5316' to stop. This is extremely uncomfortable for pilots, so they cheat low on the approach to get more runway for stopping. Often this is an unconscious reflex to the short runway sight picture. Cheat two inches too much or hit a sink pocket on short final and you take out a light pole on the I-95. Entirely predictable and understandable for an aircraft of this size landing on a runway this short. United should put a stop to this practice and if not perhaps the FAA should step in. Based on the winds there are rare days where 11/29 may be the only runway that is within limits for aircraft crosswind restrictions. This does pose a very serious operational dilemma for United. They are putting their heavy pilots in a tough spot expecting them to land on 29. Perhaps they should buy a certain JFK based airline and gain the operational flexibility to land heavies on JFK 31R or 31L on those rare days when winds are howling out of the northwest. 31L is 14,511' long and 31R is 10,000. Food for thought...
Do they really need to have light poles sticking up right at the threshold of a runway? Can't the cars use their headlights for 3 seconds there at night?
The game is on!
The ‘Dunn’ is about to be well and truly done!
Ben is sure to benefit from the clicks generated while I amuse myself running rings around an illiterate red neck Walter Mitty.
You were given an opportunity to walk away with your head held high, but no ….
You wanted this verbal intercourse Timmy darlink, now prepare to be well and truly stuffed!
You should post more and those other half dozen morons (they know who they are) should go far away and be quiet for a change. Thank you for great fact-checking and insights.
Pathetic, isn’t it? It took me a while but there are about six of Ben’s most pathetic posters who I now easily skip over while skimming the comments. After a couple of days, it’s easy.
you clearly have a bug up your backside.
You claim you are a Brit and yet you post in the middle of the night European time.
You criticize other people's content using poor grammar and then come back and do the same thing to others.
You were given an opportunity to walk away and aren't smart enough to take it.
You were a fraud the day you signed up here and have now just allowed one more person to prove it
None of which changes that UA needs to figure out how to keep their planes high enough or the FAA will have to change arrival procedures and limit widebody arrivals to EWR once again.
Boeing has performance data for its aircraft on its own site. Google is not necessary.
The FAA operates ATC and clears planes to land on specific runways. The decision to limit use of runways is theirs. UA and every other user do what the FAA allows; UPS and Fedex also fly widebodies to EWR in large enough numbers. Have they ever had these problems?
your point is the same as I have said, nonetheless. EWR 29 is too short for safe widebody landings in part because the runway threshold is too close to the perimeter of the airport and other public use facilities.
UA has shot itself in the foot multiple times at its hub airports. I doubt if the FAA is brushing this incident under the rug. UA needs to fix how its pilots use 29 at EWR or face further restrictions. There just aren't any other options.
You forgot about the black or hispanic truck driver driving into the plane and the black or hispanic woman or man who installed the pole too high.
Tim, my comment was not addressed to you nor did it involve you. I have no idea why you felt the need to police my comment? You should stay in your lane of glazing Delta with every breath, you're well out of your depth and thanks to your comment, it shows. I don't need a blow-hard, full-time, keyboard warrior to explain to me how ATC works. For YOUR information all of the major US airlines, including United and your beloved Delta use takeoff and landing performance data generated by a company called "Aerodata". Aerodata is now owned by Garmin. Aerodata reports for takeoff and landing distance is sent via ACARs. No one calculates it themselves anymore, no one has for years, and if ACARs is out of service pilots can get the same data on their company issued iPads. Airlines can request tweaks to Aerodata's standard calculations, so I have no idea what kind of numbers United has Aerodata spitting out for their heavy fleet on runway 29 EWR. If you think someone at the FAA or tower controllers are calculating landing performance data for individual flights then denying landing clearances to aircraft lacking sufficient runway to land/stop safely, you're an even bigger moron than I thought. ATC guys don't have the first clue about that kind of thing, it's not their purview, they have no means of figuring that out, nor are they interested. ATC only knows who normally does what and lands where. They do not second guess landing clearances unless something is wildly off, like a B767 crew asking to land on 33R BOS (2500 feet). It's up to the Captain and flight crew to know the limits of their aircraft and check NOTAMS concerning out of service equipment and shortened runways. Landing distance is a complex and highly variable formula, involving aircraft type, weight, runway conditions (wet, dry, contaminated etc.) winds, other atmospheric conditions like density altitude and MEL status. I glanced at a Boeing landing distance chart for the 767 400ER and making fairly average assumptions concerning passengers, cargo fuel, and fair weather you very quickly exceed the landing distance offered by 29. Take a full plane, add a lot of bags, a little cargo, and enough fuel for an alternate and you are well beyond limits. Make it a hot day or a wet runway and you're getting into the realm of impossible even with max reversers for the same aircraft. Exact same thing as what you said right?