Fuel Truck Crashes Into United Boeing 777 at Dulles, Delaying Flight

A United Boeing 777-200 was parked at Gate D5 at Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD) on Monday when a fuel truck crashed into one of the plane's engines, delaying the flight until another aircraft replaced it.

Thankfully, no one was on the plane when the incident occurred. According to airport officials, only "minor damage to the left aircraft engine casing" resulted from the crash. No one was injured.

United released the following statement in response to the incident at Dulles:

“The vehicle of a vendor servicing United 915 from Washington Dulles to Paris accidentally made contact with the Boeing 777 aircraft. No customers were onboard the aircraft when this occurred. The flight will experience a slight delay as we swap aircraft. We apologize to our customers for the delay.”

The replacement aircraft was also a Boeing 772 — registration N786UA. The flight was delayed just less than an hour, departing at 6:17pm instead of the scheduled 5:25pm. However, the aircraft made up time in the air and landed in Paris at 7:08am — just 13 minutes later than scheduled. According to PlaneSpotters.net, N786UA is just more than 21 years old, having been delivered to United in April 1997.

Just last month, a similar scenario occurred in Frankfurt when a tow truck caught fire while transporting an A340, leading the plane to get burned as well. No one was on the plane when the fire started.

H/T: Fox News