Two Delta Air Lines regional jets collided at the intersection of two taxiways at LaGuardia Airport in New York, injuring a flight attendant, damaging a cockpit and tearing off part of a wing, the National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday.
The NTSB said it sent a team of 10 investigators to the airport after the collision Wednesday night, and flight recorders have already been recovered from both airplanes and sent to its headquarters for analysis. It wasn’t immediately clear who was at fault, but air traffic control had instructed the Virginia-bound plane “to hold short and yield to the other aircraft” before the collision, the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement.
An aircraft carrying 32 people was preparing for takeoff to Roanoke, Virginia, when its wing made contact with the fuselage of an aircraft arriving from Charlotte, North Carolina, with 61 people aboard, according to a statement from Delta.
The airline described it as a “low-speed collision.” But it would not provide the planes' exact speeds, saying in a statement that that information is "germane to the open and ongoing investigation.” A passenger video showed one plane moving quite fast when the collision occurred.
A flight attendant was taken to a hospital, according to a statement from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. One of the pilots told the tower that the flight attendant told him she hit her knee when the planes collided, according to audio that www.LiveATC.net posted. There were no reports of passengers injured, the airline said.
“Their right wing clipped our nose and the cockpit. We have damage to our windscreen and ... some of our screens in here,” a pilot said, according to the air traffic control audio.
Images of the damage showed the broken wing on one plane while the other plane's cockpit window was shattered and its nose was deeply gouged in several places.
The plane that had landed “stopped, jerked, and jumped to the right,” passenger William Lusk told ABC. ”Everyone went dead silent. And as everyone went dead silent, the pilot calmly came on and said, ‘Hey, we've been in a crash, everyone remain calm.'"
Close calls like this could add to worries about aviation safety in the wake of recent crashes and near misses including the deadliest plane crash in the United States in decades, when an Army helicopter collided with an airliner preparing to land at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
Former NTSB and FAA crash investigator Jeff Guzzetti said that the ground controller lines up planes on taxiways and directs them where to go, but the pilots are expected to avoid other planes as they move at slow speeds while controllers focus on keeping the runways clear.
“You’re supposed to have situational awareness about where your wings are poking out at and what they could hit as you’re taxiing,” said Guzzetti, who is now an aviation safety consultant. “They (controllers) expect the flight crews to see each other since they’re taxiing at a slow speed. And the controller's main function is to make sure the runway is clear for takeoff and landings.”
Because this happened at night and planes typically turn off their nose lights while taxiing, it may have been more difficult for the pilots to see exactly where the other plane was, Guzzetti said. A plane's taxi lights are on the wings. The landing lights are used to improve visibility and help make sure other pilots can see the plane, but the FAA encourages pilots to be careful not to blind other pilots because landing lights can also impair night vision.
“Delta will work with all relevant authorities to review what occurred as safety of our customers and people comes before all else,” the statement from Delta said. "We apologize to our customers for the experience.”
The Delta Connection aircraft involved in the collision were operated by Endeavor Air. Both are CRJ-900 planes, said the FAA, which is investigating along with the NTSB. The planes can seat 70 to 90 passengers.
LaGuardia Airport is one of 35 major airports where the FAA has installed advanced surface radar systems that help track aircraft and vehicles on the ground and alert controllers to potential conflicts. It wasn't clear what role the system played in this collision.
Guzzetti said he's not sure if that system would have sounded an audible alarm for these planes on a taxiway even though the system would have shown both planes on a display. The primary purpose of the system is to prevent collisions on runways.
The passengers on both planes were provided meals and hotel rooms and rebooked on flights leaving on Thursday.
Associated Press writer Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire, Hallie Golden in Seattle and Sarah Brumfield in Cockeysville, Maryland, contributed to this story.
FILE - A man waits for a Delta Airlines flight at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta on Jan. 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)
DEIR AL BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — A grandmother and her 5-year-old grandson burned to death in Gaza when their tent caught fire, as thousands of Palestinians battle harrowing winter conditions in flimsy makeshift housing and the humanitarian crisis persists.
The nylon tent in Yarmouk caught fire Thursday night from cooking, a neighbor said.
As 2026 begins, the shaky 12-week-old ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has largely ended large-scale Israeli bombardment of Gaza. But Palestinians are still being killed by Israeli fire, especially along the so-called Yellow Line that delineates areas under Israeli control, and the humanitarian crisis is compounded by frequent winter rains and colder temperatures.
On Friday, American actor and film producer Angelina Jolie visited the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. The only crossing between the territory and a country other than Israel, it remains closed despite Palestinian requests to reopen it to people and aid.
Over past weeks, cold winter rains have repeatedly lashed the sprawling tent cities, causing flooding, turning Gaza’s dirt roads into mud and causing buildings damaged in Israeli bombardment to collapse. UNICEF says at least six children have now died of weather-related causes, including a 4-year-old who died in a building collapse.
At least three children have died of hypothermia, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. High temperatures in December were in the 60s Fahrenheit (15-20 Celsius), but dipped into the mid-40s F (6-8 C) on some nights.
Aid groups say not enough shelter materials are getting into Gaza during the truce. Figures recently released by Israel’s military suggest it hasn’t met the ceasefire stipulation of allowing 600 trucks of aid into Gaza a day, though Israel disputes that finding. There is also concern that Israel's recent suspension of more than three dozen international aid groups from operating in Gaza will make it even harder to get supplies like tents in.
Palestinians have long called for mobile homes and caravans to be allowed in to protect them against living in impractical and worn out tents. In Yarmouk, people live in nylon tents near a garbage dump.
Ashraf al-Suwair said he woke up to the sound of screaming as his neighbors shouted “fire! fire!" He said nylon is like fuel, easy to ignite. “We need a good place that suits the people and the children of Gaza, instead of burning to death," he said.
Jolie met with members of the Red Crescent on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing and then visited a hospital in the nearby city of Arish to speak with Palestinian patients on Friday, according to Egyptian officials.
Reopening the crossing, which would allow Palestinians to leave Gaza — especially the ill and wounded who could get specialized care unavailable in the territory — has been contentious. Israel has said that it will only allow Palestinians to exit Gaza, not enter, until militants in Gaza return all the hostages they took in the attack on Oct. 7, 2023, which triggered the war. The remains of one hostage are still in Gaza.
In addition, Israel says Palestinians wanting to leave Gaza will have to get Israeli and Egyptian security approval. Egypt, meanwhile, says it wants the crossing immediately opened in both directions, so Palestinians in Egypt can enter Gaza. That’s a position rooted in Egypt’s vehement opposition to Palestinian refugees permanently resettling in the country.
For more than two decades until 2022, Jolie was a special envoy to the U.N. refugee agency. She has continued to advocate for human rights issue and has visited conflict areas, including Ukraine.
On Friday the foreign ministers of Arab and Muslim countries, including Egypt, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, expressed concern about Gaza's humanitarian situation.
The situation has been “compounded by the continued lack of sufficient humanitarian access, acute shortages of essential life-saving supplies, and the slow pace of the entry of essential materials," said the joint statement.
Israel has said throughout the war that Hamas was siphoning off aid supplies, an accusation that the United Nations and aid groups have denied. Last month, the World Food Program said that there have been “notable improvements” in food security in Gaza since the ceasefire.
Since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas began, 416 people have been killed and 1,142 wounded in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry. The overall Palestinian death toll from the war is at least 71,271. The ministry, which doesn't distinguish between militants and civilians in its count, is staffed by medical professionals and maintains detailed records viewed as generally reliable by the international community.
The Israel-Hamas war began with the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage.
Meanwhile, Israel continues operating in the occupied West Bank.
On Friday, the Palestinian Prisoners media office said that Israel carried out numerous raids across the territory, including the major cities of Ramallah and Hebron. Nearly 50 people were detained, following the arrest of at least 50 other Palestinians on Thursday, most of those in the Ramallah area.
Israel's military said there were arrests made of people “involved in terrorist activity." Last Friday, a Palestinian attacker rammed his car into a man and then stabbed a young woman in northern Israel on Friday afternoon, killing both, police said. Raids were conducted afterward in the attacker's West Bank hometown.
The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society says that Israel has arrested 7,000 Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem this year, and 21,000 since the war began. The number arrested from Gaza isn't made public by Israel.
Find more of AP’s Israel-Hamas coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
American actor and film producer Angelina Jolie, front left, greets Red Crecent workers during her visit to the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip in Rafah, Egypt, Friday, Jan. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohamed Arafat)
The bodies of Amal Abu Al-Khair and her grandchild, Saud, are transferred to Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City after they were killed when their tent caught fire overnight at the Yarmouk displacement camp, Friday, Jan. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Fatima Abu al-Bayd inspects what remains of her mother's tent after her mother, Amal Abu Al-Khair, and grandchild, Saud, were killed when it caught fire overnight at the Yarmouk displacement camp in Gaza City, Friday, Jan. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Fatima Abu al-Bayd inspects what remains of her mother's tent after her mother, Amal Abu Al-Khair, and grandchild, Saud, were killed when it caught fire overnight at the Yarmouk displacement camp in Gaza City, Friday, Jan. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
Magdi Abu Al-Khair bids farewell to his mother, Amal Abu Al-Khair, after she and her grandchild, Saud, were killed when their tent caught fire overnight at the Yarmouk displacement camp, at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Friday, Jan. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)
