WestJet plane makes contact with catering truck while departing YVR
Posted January 3, 2019 2:06 pm.
Last Updated January 3, 2019 7:58 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
RICHMOND (NEWS 1130) — Passengers were forced to disembark their WestJet flight after the plane “made contact” with a catering truck while leaving its gate at Vancouver International Airport.
Flight 1722 was on its way from Vancouver to Palm Springs on Thursday when it made contact.
“All guests and crew were safely offloaded upon the aircraft’s return to gate and have been reaccommodated onto a new aircraft scheduled to depart shortly,” a WestJet spokesperson wrote in an email.
Chris Cali, a passenger on that flight, says she heard a something minutes after the plane started to move.
“We were on the tarmac, we were just starting to back up, and heard a little ‘pop,'” she says. “The person next to me said ‘I think we hit something.’ But you know, you’re thinking maybe we just ran over a suitcase.
“It was a little tap but it was enough to break part of the wing.”
She says the airline brought over a second plane and boarded the passengers on that flight shortly afterward.
The airline is apologizing to travellers for delays and adds it’s worked to get them on their way as soon as possible.
The extent of the damage is unknown.
-With files from Lasia Kretzel, Renee Bernard