New video shows United hit lamp post, truck
- United Flight 169, a Boeing 767-400 from Venice, hit a New Jersey Turnpike light pole and an H&S Bakery tractor-trailer on May 3. - The jet still landed safely at Newark around 2 p.m.; 221 passengers and 10 crew were unhurt, while the truck driver had minor injuries. - New video matters because it sharpens questions about how low the approach was on Newark’s tight Runway 29 arrival path.
A United widebody coming into Newark didn’t just fly low — it hit things on the way in. New video now shows Flight 169, a Boeing 767-400 arriving from Venice on Sunday, May 3, clipping a light pole on the New Jersey Turnpike and striking an H&S Bakery tractor-trailer before landing safely at Newark Liberty. Everyone on the plane got off unharmed, but the truck driver was treated for minor injuries, and federal investigators are now picking through how an airliner ended up that close to highway traffic. (faa.gov) ### What exactly happened? The flight was on final approach to Runway 29 at Newark at about 2 p.m. local time when it came down low enough for part of the aircraft — video suggests the landing gear area — to strike a highway light pole and then the southbound truck below. The plane continued to the runway and landed normally enough to t(faa.gov)d incident. The new footage makes it feel much less abstract. (faa.gov) ### Which flight was it? It was United Flight 169 from Venice, Italy, to Newark, operated by a Boeing 767-400. The passenger count reported across official and local accounts was 221 passengers plus 10 crew, for 231 people on board. United later pulled the crew from service while the investigation got underway — standard after something this serious. (faa.gov) ### Who got hurt? Not the people on the plane. The truck driver took the hit from shattered glass and was taken to a hospital with minor injuries, then released. There was also a chain effect on the roadway — police said the struck pole then hit a Jeep. That detail matters because this wasn’t only an aviation close call. It spilled directly into highway traffic. (nbcnewyork.com) ### Why is the new video a big deal? Because the first descriptions made this sound like a pole strike. The newer angles show the plane skimming over active traffic and making contact with the truck too. That changes the feel of the event from “odd runway-adjacent mishap” to “this was inches from something much worse.” Video doesn’t answer the cause, but it does tighten the basic fact pattern. (abc7.com) ### How can a plane get that low? Runway 29 at Newark has long been known as a visually dramatic approach because the flight path crosses the Turnpike right before touchdown. The catch is that “low-looking” and “too low” are not the same thing. Investigators will want the exac(abc7.com)depath, or procedural issue pushed the jet below where it should have been. That part is still unresolved. (abcnews.com) ### Who is investigating? Both the FAA and the NTSB. The FAA confirmed the basic incident in a public statement, and the NTSB opened an investigation shortly after. That means investigators will likely review flight data, cockpit voice recordings, aircraft damage, airport approach procedures, and video from both the roadway and the airport side. (faa.gov) ### Is this tied to Newark’s broader problems? Only loosely, at least for now. Newark has been under extra scrutiny because of congestion and other operational disruptions, so this incident lands in an already jumpy environment. But this specific case looks like its own event — a final approach that went low enough to hit roadside objects — and it will be investigated on its own facts. (abc7.com) ### Bottom line The new footage doesn’t change the luckiest fact — 231 people on the plane survived, and the driver’s injuries were minor. But it does make the core question much sharper: how did a transatlantic 767 get close enough to highway traffic to hit a pole and a truck before touching down? (nbcnewyork.com)
