Plane with over 280 onboard ‘strikes’ parked aircraft at Japan airport

A Korean Air Lines plane scraped against a Cathay Pacific Airways aircraft at New Chitose Airport on Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido on Tuesday, Fuji TV reported as per news agency Reuters.

No injuries have been reported so far, the broadcaster reported.

Cathay Pacific said that one of its planes was “struck” by the Korean Air airliner, adding, “Cathay Pacific confirms that there was an incident involving a Cathay Pacific aircraft while it was parked at New Chitose Airport in Sapporo today (16 January). Our aircraft, which was stationary at the time with no customers nor crew onboard, was struck by a Korean Air A330 which was taxiing past.”

The Korean Air plane was carrying 289 people when it hit the parked Cathay Pacific aircraft, Japanese media reported. The incident happened only two weeks after a collision between a Japan Airlines airliner and a coast guard plane on a runway at Tokyo’s Haneda airport.

Korean Air also confirmed there were no injuries on board its plane as the carrier said, “A Korean Air aircraft came into contact with a Cathay aircraft during pushback at New Chitose (Sapporo) Airport when the third-party ground handler vehicle slipped due to heavy snow. There were no injuries and the airline is cooperating with all relevant authorities.”