After a taxiing plane struck a parked aircraft at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Wednesday, passengers and regulators scrambled to understand what had happened — but with no injuries or major disruptions to air travel, the airport remained mostly calm amid a puzzling sequence of events.
The incident happened around 10:15 a.m. Wednesday after Japan Airlines Flight 68 landed from Tokyo at Sea-Tac and began taxiing toward the S Concourse.
Nearby, Delta Air Lines Flight 1921 was parked as it waited for deicing before taking off for Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. The plane had 142 passengers on board, according to the airline.
As the Japan Airlines plane was taxiing, the right wing of the aircraft, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, struck the tail of the Delta jet, a Boeing 737 Next Generation. The Japan Airlines plane had 172 passengers and 13 crew members on board after the nine-hour flight.
The damage to both planes was significant, according to Port of Seattle spokesperson Perry Cooper. The Federal Aviation Administration temporarily slowed down air traffic at Sea-Tac but it did not cause any major disruptions, Cooper said.
Both aircraft had been removed by Wednesday afternoon.
Now, the FAA will investigate what went wrong and may tap the National Transportation Safety Board, Cooper said. The FAA said the aircraft were in an area that is not under air traffic control.
Japan Airlines said in a statement Wednesday afternoon “We sincerely apologize to all involved for any inconvenience. The detailed cause and circumstances are currently under investigation.”
Brett Powers, 67, from La Conner, Skagit County, was a passenger on the Japan Airlines plane. He said the flight had landed on time and was heading toward the S Concourse when the pilot told passengers the gate they were slotted to taxi to was full.
The pilot estimated they’d wait about 10 minutes before making another attempt to enter, Powers said. Instead, the plane started taxiing a few minutes later.
Then Powers heard someone start to scream.
He couldn’t make out what the passenger on the other aisle of the plane was yelling and assumed the passenger was having a medical emergency, he said.
Moments later, Powers felt a jolt. “It felt like the pilot had hit the brakes really hard,” Powers said.
Other than the initial yelling, Powers said passengers on board did not panic and nobody appeared to be hurt. The cabin crew remained calm.
Powers had been flying back to Seattle after a three-and-a-half-week trip visiting China, Vietnam, Thailand and other countries. He travels often, he said, and the bump Wednesday didn’t make him more fearful of air travel.
Still, “that was a new one for me,” Powers said after deplaning.
It’s too soon to know what caused the planes to hit but Cooper, from the Port of Seattle, said Wednesday afternoon he didn’t expect the day’s snowy conditions led to the incident. The space was bare and wet at the time of the hit, he said.
It’s not unusual for aircraft to taxi after landing and before deplaning, Cooper said, particularly at Sea-Tac.
“We have one of the smallest footprints in any airport in the country, with the amount of operations we have here,” he said.
He estimated the taxiing Japan Airlines plane was traveling 10-20 mph before it hit the Delta jet.
Delta rebooked passengers on another flight to Puerto Vallarta on Wednesday afternoon, Cooper said. Japan Airlines canceled its next scheduled flight to Tokyo later that day, leaving many passengers rushing to figure out new travel plans.
Japan Airlines originally told passengers the flight was delayed, three passengers said. It took over an hour for them to learn the flight had been canceled and those passengers said they first found out by looking it up online, rather than through communication from the airline.
Two passengers said they could see the chaos below them from the lounge but that the airline had not told them what went wrong.
Later that morning, their mobile tickets showed the flight had been canceled due to an aircraft rotation, according to two tickets shared with The Seattle Times.
Amy Fustino, 42, from Bremerton, was traveling to Japan for work and was frustrated Wednesday about the unexpected change of plans. She was able to rebook a flight for the next day but is now flying a different airline and to a different airport. That means she has to recoordinate travel when she lands and her team is “going to have to pick up the slack” without her there.
She was frustrated the airline didn’t communicate that the flight had been canceled earlier. “I would have had more control about still being able to get out today,” Fustino said.
But she wasn’t rattled by the events on the tarmac. “I just feel like it’s par for the course at this point,” Fustino said.
She’s not worried about her flight Thursday because “I’m going to change airlines.”
Josh Blaine, Troy Lian and Colin Hooper, all from the Seattle area, were traveling to Japan with a group of 10 friends from high school for vacation.
When the flight was canceled, Japan Airlines told them it couldn’t help rebook unless they chose to do so through the airline’s website. Because the group had used different platforms to book, they scattered around the airport to talk with agents as they tried to secure refunds and new bookings.
The three friends found out the flight had been canceled while they were waiting at the gate but said they couldn’t see or hear any indication that something went wrong.
“I’m surprised nobody noticed,” Hooper said.
The scene at the gate remained calm, even as all the passengers found out what had happened, the friends said. Instead of panic over the two jets hitting, there was panic over rebooking.
Seema Khincha and her 11-year-old son Anshul got to the airport early for their flight Wednesday because they were worried the snowy weather may cause delays.
Khincha, from Kirkland, was flying on Japan Airlines to Tokyo and then on to Bengaluru, India, also known as Bangalore, to celebrate her father’s 79th birthday. Now she doesn’t know if she’ll make it.
“It scares me. I don’t know if I’ll travel again in the near future,” she said, referring to the incident Wednesday at Sea-Tac and recent crashes, including in South Korea and Washington, D.C.
Asked if she plans to rebook her flight, Khincha said, “It’s too much to process. All I’m doing is waiting for my luggage and going back home.”
___
© 2025 The Seattle Times
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Source: American Military News
