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African Airline Reports Drone Collision With Passenger Jet (airlive.net)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the impacts-in-the-air dept.

McGruber writes: Airlive is reporting that a drone collided with a Boeing 737-700 as it was on approach to Tete, Mozambique airport on Thursday. The 737 landed safely, but the right-hand side of the nose dome and fuselage were badly damaged.
The plane was carrying 80 passengers and a crew of 6, according to the Aviation Herald, which has more pictures of the damaged nose dome. "The crew heard a loud bang," they report, adding that "no abnormal indications followed. The crew, suspecting a bird strike, continued the approach for a safe landing." But USA Today notes that "While pilots have reported hundreds of sightings of drones near planes, previous suspected collisions have been debunked."

2 of 78 comments (clear)

  1. Re:This is not a drone like your kids toy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    it just looks like a low speed collision with something like a stairway.

    I just want to make sure I'm understanding your comment correctly.

    Are you saying that you suspect that the African crew of this plane landed it, and then collided with a movable passenger loading/unloading staircase while on the ground? And then they came up with this drone/bird/whatever strike story to deflect blame away from themselves?

    Or are you trying to say something else?

  2. Re:This is not a drone like your kids toy by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Are you saying that you suspect that the African crew of this plane landed it, and then collided with a movable passenger loading/unloading staircase while on the ground? And then they came up with this drone/bird/whatever strike story to deflect blame away from themselves?

    That is plausible. It is also plausible that some bean counter made up the story because the insurance covers in-air collisions differently. Or some PR person made it up for publicity. Or maybe the ground crew tweeted the picture, and the rumor spread from there. TFA contains almost zero information, and does not say that the drone story came from the pilots. The Facebook post by the airline doesn't even mention the drone, although I may have misunderstood since I can read Spanish way better than Portuguese.