A tow truck has become stuck under a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 737 at Kuala Lumpur Airport after an apparent collision. Whilst no one was injured, there appears to be extensive damage to the airframe and one of its engines, grounding the 737 for the foreseeable future.

What are the details?

Late last night local time, a tow truck driving around Kuala Lumpur International Airport collided with a Boeing 737. Somehow, the driver managed to get the truck completely stuck underneath the aircraft.

From the video, it looks as if the low truck scrapped the fuselage. It appears to have become embedded in the aircraft's left engine.

As the Boeing 737-800 is already low to the ground, it seems that, had the truck been any bigger, far more damage would have occurred. It's a miracle that the driver was able to walk away unscathed, as the video below shows.

Was this Boeing 737 about to fly?

We should also mention that, whilst this damage is severe, it is unlikely that the Boeing 737 was needed to fly for Malaysia Airlines at this time. Plus, considering that the airline has 48 Boeing 737s grounded and ready to be deployed, its safe to say that the airline wasn't too worried about the lack of aircraft due to the accident.

The airline has grounded plenty of aircraft and routes, such as its A380s and flights to Australia, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. The carrier is planning to restart some international services this month, with flights to from Kuala Lumpur to Auckland, Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, Jakarta, and Guangzhou.

The Boeing 737 may have been destined to fly to the close destination of Jakarta, only around two hours by plane.

“Many customers from Malaysians to foreigners have reached out to our global offices requesting for available flights mostly between Kuala Lumpur to Australia and New Zealand as well as to Kuala Lumpur onward to London,” said Izham Ismail, Group Chief Executive Officer of Malaysia Airlines in the media statement,

We can't help but also think that why would the 737 be in a location frequented by trucks?

Perhaps it was about to be deployed on a route or a life-saving medical mission that, thanks to this accident, is now in jeopardy. 

"Most recently we transported two tonnes of face masks and personal protection equipment from Kuala Lumpur to Kota Kinabalu as well as 300,000 pieces of disposable masks, 50,000 pieces of protection suit and 8000 pieces of protection suit with eye mask courtesy of the Jack Ma Foundation and Alibaba Foundation from Shanghai to Kuala Lumpur."

These Boeing 737s would be used for domestic routes within the country, to ferry around essential medical personnel and life-saving devices to the hard-hit country. We hope that this event did not impact any medical trips.

We reached out to Malaysia Airlines regarding this incident, but did not hear back before publication.

What do you think about this news? Let us know in the comments.