British Airways and Emirates collide at Dubai International Airport
Taken by Nigel/Nigellas via @airline_kitty via Twitter
British Airways Airbus A350-1000 collided with Emirates Boeing 777-300ER on the 14th of April 2020. It appears that the Airbus A350-K pushed back and collided with the parked Boeing 777.
The Airbus is registered G-XWBA making it the oldest A350 in the British airline’s fleet. The aircraft received damage to its horizontal stabiliser and as a result will not be flying for a few days. It appears that the A350 was about to fly back to London Heathrow operating flight BA106. The 13 year old Emirates Boeing 777 registered A6-EBR was parked after arriving from Riyadh the day before.
It is unclear if repairing these aircraft is the top priority for the time being with the airlines being under financial strain due to Covid-19. However, British Airways may want to return one of their only aircraft in service back to London.
The incident is currently under investigation. Thankfully, nobody was injured. It looks like Dnata, the ground handler’s insurance company will have to pay for the damage to both aircraft, however, this isn’t confirmed.
Emirates is a world known airline that predominately uses the Boeing 777-300 aircraft to carry out their operations. They are also notorious for being one of biggest user of the Airbus A380-800 aircraft. Airbus were going to cease the production for these huge aircraft but this idea was cut short once Emirates signed an agreement in early 2019 with the company for 14 of these planes over the next two years. They also have 126 order for more Boeing 777s.
British Airways has 5 Airbus A350’s in their fleet. They are the newest aircraft to join the airline with the planes registered from G-XWBA to G-XWBE. The airline intended to use these aircraft to operate flights to the US. However, with this global pandemic, this hasn’t been the case.
G-XWBA was the first aircraft to have the new Club Suite business class cabin. In July 2019, this majestic aircraft was delivered. However, it wasn’t until early August that this aircraft took to the skies for a British Airways.
Pictures 1, 3, 4 and 6 taken by Conor McGeehan.
Pictures 2 and 5 taken by Eoin Reynolds.
This exact aircraft was seen in Shannon Airport, Ireland from the 31st of August to the 1st of September 2019. It was performing multiple tests over the course of two days. The aircraft did multiple circuits including large ones out to the Atlantic. In between each one, the aircraft landed and allowed crew changes while holding short. This allowed the pilots to switch around. The call sign was changed between each circuit. According to multiple observers present on the 30th of September, the aircraft established a repetitive routine. It would takeoff, fly for approximately 20 minutes, touchdown, taxi back, return to the skies for a short flight while performing a go around in between and come back to land. G-XWBA also performed multiple touch and goes as well.
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