A United Airlines plane coming in for a landing at Newark Liberty International Airport on Sunday hit a bakery truck, and the incident was caught on video.
The truck’s driver was moving along the New Jersey Turnpike when the aircraft approached, and his dash camera recorded the moment of impact, the New York Post reported Monday.
The driver, who works for H&S Bakery, was relaxed in the moments before United Airlines Flight 169 moved closer. The clip then showed the truck driver looking out the passenger side window seconds before the plane went over and apparently hit his vehicle:
The Post article said the driver only suffered minor cuts as a result of the crash.
“To me, that everybody on that plane, everybody and the driver, God was looking after them, there’s no doubt. If we did that scenario again, I don’t know if anybody could’ve survived that,” Chuck Paterakis, who is co-principal at the bakery, stated.
The plane was coming in from Venice, Italy, when it got too close to traffic on the ground, according to ABC 7.
“According to a preliminary investigation by the New Jersey State Police, while the inbound United Airlines flight was approaching the runway, a landing tire and the underside of the plane stuck a pole and the top of the tractor-trailer,” the outlet said.
Social media users pointed out that in the clip, viewers could see what appeared to be the plane’s tire outside the truck driver’s window.
“The plane also hit a light pole just before the impact with the truck, authorities said. That pole flew into a Jeep, though no one was hurt in the SUV,” NBC New York reported.
Now, officials with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) are investigating what occurred moments before the plane landed safely. There were over 200 passengers and crew members onboard at the time, per the ABC article.
When speaking of the crash and the fact no one was seriously hurt, Paterakis told NBC, “It’s a miracle. It could have been traumatically worse.”
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