Plane carrying six members of Congress clipped at Reagan Airport

Two American Airlines jets, including one carrying at least six members of Congress from New York and New Jersey, clipped wings on a taxiway at Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington on Thursday, officials said.

There were no injuries, according to American Airlines, which said that the damage was limited to the winglets of the two planes and that both jets had been taken out of service for inspection.

The six House members were departing for Kennedy International Airport when the right winglet of their Embraer E175, which was stationary, was clipped by a regional jet heading to Charleston, South Carolina, officials said.

“I’ve been flying for over 10 years to Washington,” Rep. Grace Meng, D-N.Y., said during a Zoom call with reporters while waiting for another flight. “This has never happened to me.”

Meng, whose district is in New York City’s Queens borough, identified the other House members who were aboard the flight as Gregory Meeks, Ritchie Torres, Adriano Espaillat, all Democrats from New York; Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J.; and Nick LaLota, R-N.Y.

Meng said that she was sitting on the other side of the plane from where the wings clipped.

“We suddenly felt some shaking,” she said, recalling that some passengers across the aisle had noticed “a little piece fell off” the wing.

She said she passed out grapes while the jet waited on the tarmac. The crew handed out water and snacks to the passengers, she said.

Meng said she was booked on another American flight around 3 p.m. and was rushing to get to a memorial service later in the day for Nita M. Lowey, a Democrat who represented Westchester County in the House for three decades. Lowey died last month at 87.

LaLota posted about the experience on social media shortly after the accident.

“Serving in Congress has come with some once in a lifetime experiences… like just now while stationary on the runway at DCA, another plane just bumped into our wing,” he wrote on X, using the three-letter airport code for Reagan Airport.

It’s not unusual to spot members of Congress on commercial flights at Reagan Airport, especially during breaks on Capitol Hill. The lawmakers quickly began chronicling the mishap on social media.

The episode brought further scrutiny to safety procedures at the Reagan Airport, where an American Airlines regional jet making its final approach was struck by an Army helicopter on Jan. 29, killing all 67 people aboard the two aircraft. That crash was the deadliest in the United States in 20 years.

American Airlines said that there were 67 passengers and four crew members on the flight bound for Kennedy and 76 passengers and four crew members on the Bombardier CRJ-900 that was heading for South Carolina.

“Safety is our top priority, and we apologize to our customers for their experience,” the airline said in a statement.

Some of the Democrats who were on the plane that was clipped used the incident to level fresh criticism at the Trump administration, which they said was undermining safety by laying off about 400 employees at the Federal Aviation Administration as part of a cost-cutting initiative spearheaded by Elon Musk. The Trump administration has insisted that air traffic controllers, of which there is a shortage, were not included in the cuts.

“Just a reminder: Recent cuts to the FAA weaken our skies and public safety,” Gottheimer wrote on social media.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy pushed back against the criticism in a social media post responding to Gottheimer.

“Glad to hear everyone on board is safe,” Duffy said. “But stop the fear mongering and let’s stick to the facts. No safety-critical positions at the FAA have been cut.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.