Lawmakers Feel Wing Clip Another Plane at DC Airport

The wing of one regional jet clipped another Thursday on a taxiway at Reagan National Airport, the site of a fatal collision in January involving a similar plane and a military helicopter. No injuries were reported in the Thursday bump. At least a half-dozen members of Congress were on one of the flights, some of whom quickly posted online that the accident demonstrates the need to restore funding and personnel cut by the Trump administration from the Federal Aviation administration. "People's lives are at stake," Democratic Rep. Gregory Meeks posted on X, the Washington Post reports. "Cuts and firing FAA employees are not the answer."

The FAA said the wing tip of American Airlines Flight 5490 bound for Charleston hit American Flight 4522, which was headed to JFK International Airport in New York, in the noon hour, per the Post. The plane struck is an Embraer E175, which had 71 people total on board, and the other is a Bombardier CRJ 900, which had 80, per NBC News. The authority that runs the DC airport said no other flights were disrupted. The FAA said it will investigate the cause of the accident, per CNN. Democratic Rep. Grace Meng said she felt her plane shaking, per the New York Times. LiveATC.net captured audio of Flight 5490's pilot asking the control tower, "BlueStreak 5490, did we hit the aircraft next to us?" (More Reagan National Airport stories.)