Planes bump wings on the ground at Washington's Reagan National Airport
'The wingtip of American Airlines Flight 5490 struck American Airlines Flight 4522 on a taxiway… around 12:45 p.m,' the FAA said in a statement.
Flight 5490 was headed to Charleston, South Carolina while flight 4522 was headed to JFK International Airport in New York.
'BlueStreak 5490, did we hit the aircraft next to us,' the pilot flying asks the tower in air traffic control audio captured by the website LiveATC.net
BlueStreak is the callsign for PSA Airlines, which operated the flight for American. The other plane was operated by Republic Airways.
'We think we might have hit the (Embraer) 175 short of (runway) 19,' the pilot says. 'We just heard a loud, like a boom, like a thunk, before we took the runway,'
The winglet, which is a type of aerodynamic wing tip, was reported to have broken off.
'We can see a piece of a winglet on the ground behind the right wing of the Embraer,' the control tower was told by a pilot.
'Insane,' Rep. Josh Gottheimer, who was on one of the planes, told CNN. 'Sitting there on runway and another plane hit… our wing.'
'Serving in Congress has come with some once in a lifetime experiences… like just now while stationary on the runway at DCA, another plane just bumped into our wing,' Rep. Nick LaLota posted to social media. 'Heading back to the gate, but thankfully everyone is ok!.
In a lighthearted part of the post he noted Rep. Grace Meng was handing out grapes to other passengers.
'There is no effect on flight operations at Reagan National Airport, as both aircraft have returned to gates and no injuries were reported,' the airport said in a statement to CNN.
The aviation fender bender comes as the airport is coping with a series of recent incidents, including a mid-air collision in January that left 67 people dead and a military flyover last month that came dangerously close to a departing plane.
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Amid a sweeping purge of webpages that promoted diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts, the Pentagon wiped a number of pages honoring the contribution of MacDonald, Begay and their peers. It was part of a hurried crackdown that also saw the deletion of information completely unrelated to DEI issues – like Holocaust remembrance, suicide prevention and the Enola Gay aircraft – or pages that commemorated other war heroes like World War II Medal of Honor recipient Pfc. Harold Gonsalves and historically significant service members such as baseball great Jackie Robinson. 'The new administration came in, and I guess they want to change a lot of things,' MacDonald told CNN. 'They wanted nothing, no words, about Navajo Code Talkers.' Multiple defense officials told CNN at the time that military units were instructed to simply use keyword searches like 'racism,' 'ethnicity,' 'history' and 'first' when searching for articles and photos to remove. The Pentagon subsequently restored the pages, and Pentagon press secretary John Ullyot said in a statement at the time: 'In the rare cases that content is removed — either deliberately or by mistake — that is out of the clearly outlined scope of the directive, we instruct the components and they correct the content so it recognizes our heroes for their dedicated service alongside their fellow Americans, period.' The episode became a flashpoint in the national controversy over the Trump administration's targeting of DEI initiatives. Ronald Begay, who champions his father's efforts to preserve the Code Talkers' legacy, said he was 'appalled' by the saga. 'I immediately started texting the Navajo Code Talker descendants, as well as some prominent veterans – we support each other in various ways,' he said. 'Why would they do that?' he asked. 'After all, that's why we are free … our language was historic.' The episode was quickly undone. But for the Code Talkers and their descendants, it struck at the heart of a deep-rooted fear: that their legacy will be sidelined once MacDonald and Begay are not longer around to tell their stories. 'We need a good 'thank you' from the people who have become wealthy in America,' MacDonald said. He'd like a new movie to be made about their contribution, alongside a permanent, dedicated museum. MacDonald and other Code Talkers have campaigned for years to make the museum project a reality, but it remains tens of millions of dollars out of reach, the Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper reported in 2023. CNN has contacted organizers of the project for an update on its progress. 'I don't believe (people) understand this tremendous contribution to the battle in the Pacific War,' he said. 'It made all the difference in the world.' The next time a post-war milestone is met, it is possible that no Code Talkers will be alive to greet it. But MacDonald and Begay hope their contribution to American history is remembered once they are no longer present to tell their stories. 'I believe this is the only country in the entire world blessed by the holy ones,' MacDonald said. 'And we need to keep it that way.' But the Pentagon's DEI purge and the lack of progress on the long-running effort to cement the Code Talkers' legacy with a museum has angered him. 'We need to get back to serious thinking (about) how we're gonna live into the next century,' he said.
