Today, August 1st, an Aeroflot Airbus A321 sustained damage when a fuel truck collided with it at Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport (SVO). Photos circulating on the internet show a crumbled and half-flattened truck cabin beneath the A321. A long crack appears just behind the aircraft's radome.
Incident details
According to a translated article from Russian site DixiNews, Sheremetyevo's press team states that the aircraft was in a spare parking space where there were no crew or passengers on board.
Moscow emergency services via the source also stated that that the driver of the refueling truck was injured in the collision. Meanwhile, an Aeroflot spokesperson reports that the tanker had driven off of the airport's special service road just before the crash. The aircraft's parking location was specified as lot 173.
"There is damage to the nose of the fuselage, the cabin of the fueling vehicle is damaged. The degree of damage is being assessed. There are no casualties or injuries. The driver of the fueling vehicle has received medical assistance," -Aeroflot spokesperson via DixiNews
Details of the aircraft involved
The Airbus A321 is registered as VP-BAXand was bestowed the nickname Sviatoslav Richter, a prominent Russian pianist. The narrowbody aircraft joined the fleet along with another A321, VP-BAV, on August 24th, 2016.
"The airliners are designed in a new enhanced two class composition with 16 seats in business and 167 in economy. All A321 aircraft family are delivered to Aeroflot directly from the manufacturing plant in Hamburg. Aeroflot operates А321 aircraft across its European and domestic routes network." -Aeroflot
According to data available from FlightRadar24.com, VP-BAX had most recently flown from Crimea's Simferopol International Airport (SIP) in Ukraine. The aircraft departed SIP just before 02:30 this morning, arriving at Moscow Sheremetyevo ahead of schedule, just after 04:30 local time.
Simple Flying reached out to Aeroflot requesting comment or statement. However, at the time of publication, no response has been received from the airline. We will update this article if any new information comes in.
Other interesting collisions with ground vehicles
Aircraft incidents involving ground vehicles aren't extremely common, but they do happen from time to time. Here are some similar stories we've covered in the past:
Air Canada Dash 8 and fuel truck: An Air Canada plane had a collision with a fuel tanker in the early hours of Friday, May 10th. The flight was operated by Jazz Aviation on behalf of Air Canada Express and took place at Toronto's Pearson International Airport. Subsequently, five passengers had injuries from the incident, which took place around 01:36 local time.
LATAM Airbus A350 and luggage cart: A LATAM Airbus A350was damaged as a result of a collision with a luggage transportation vehicle at São Paulo/Guarulhos airport in Brazil on June 8th. Photos show that the ground vehicle struck the right-hand engine cowling.
Air New Zealand 787 and a catering truck: The airline's very first Dreamliner, the distinctively black jet, was grounded for a year, mainly due to a collision with a catering truck. The incident took place in April 2019, leaving the aircraft grounded for an extended period of time due to a shortage of serviceable Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines.
Altogether, what are your thoughts about today's incident? Let us know what you think in the comment section.