Pictured: Damaged tail of Norwegian Air Dreamliner after it hit a FENCE at Gatwick Airport
- Ground crews were manoeuvring 300-seater Boeing 787 Dreamliner at Gatwick
- But they pushed the plane so far back that it hit a perimeter fence this morning
- It collided with fence, damaging a cone which contains the auxiliary power unit
- Passengers left the aircraft without any injuries and boarded replacement plane
By Joel Adams and Mark Duell for MailOnline
Published: 09:19 EDT, 12 August 2019 | Updated: 11:47 EDT, 12 August 2019
A Norweigan Air plane crashed into a fence while being moved from its departure gate at London Gatwick Airport today.
Passengers said ground crews manoeuvring the 300-seater Boeing 787 Dreamliner around the Sussex airport pushed it so far back it hit a perimeter fence.
As it was being pushed back ahead of flight DI7017 at 9.50am, it collided with the fence, damaging a cone which contains the auxiliary power unit at its rear.
The damage caused to the cone of a Norweigan Air plane which crashed into a fence while being moved from its departure gate at London Gatwick Airport today
One passenger shared a photograph of fire crews rushing to the scene after today’s incident
The Norwegian plane was pushed into the noise mitigation barrier and passengers took to social media to share photographs of fire crews rushing to the scene.
One tweeted: ‘Tug pushes Norwegian 787 Dreamliner back to far that it hits part of Gatwick Airport perimeter fence. ‘Fire crews on recorsionary [sic] standby.’
Passengers left the aircraft without any injuries and boarded a replacement plane to continue their journey. The 787 was then sent for maintenance.
Norwegian said: ‘We can confirm that one of our aircraft sustained some damage upon pushback on today’s flight DI7017 from London Gatwick to New York JFK.
The Norwegian Air Boeing 787 Dreamliner (file) was pushed into the noise mitigation barrier
The aircraft was reportedly being manoeuvred around the Sussex airport by ground crews
‘All passengers disembarked the aircraft as normal and are currently being assisted by our ground staff in the terminal.
‘The safety and wellbeing of our customers is our top priority and we are currently making arrangements to put passengers on a replacement aircraft that will depart this afternoon. We would like to apologise to our customers for the inconvenience.’
It comes after plane debris reportedly rained ‘like bullets’ from the sky over Rome as a fragments fell off a Norwegian airlines plane.
Meanwhile passengers of British Airways were left furious when an IT problem delayed 300 flights and 15,000 holidaymakers last week.
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