Two planes — a UPS cargo jet and a Copa Airlines passenger jet carrying 166 passengers and six crew members — collided on a taxiway at Miami International Airport on Saturday night. The contact happened about 9:15 p.m. near the intersection of two taxiways, and while two passengers were treated for minor injuries, no one needed to go to a hospital. The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating.
What Happened
Copa Flight 427, a Boeing 737-800, had just arrived from Panama City, Panama, around 9 p.m. and was taxiing toward the terminal when the planes made contact. The other aircraft was a UPS Boeing 767 cargo jet scheduled to depart Miami for Bogotá, Colombia, as Flight 358.
Miami-Dade Fire Rescue identified the aircraft as a UPS Boeing 767 and a Copa Airlines Boeing 737-800. Airport communications director Greg Chin said an arriving aircraft and a departing plane came into contact at the intersection of two taxiways.
Preliminary reports differ on exactly how the aircraft touched. Some early accounts suggested the cargo jet's nose met the passenger jet's wingtip as both planes moved along the taxiways. Air traffic control audio captured after the impact tells a similar story from the cockpit: when a controller asked the UPS crew whether the planes had made contact, a crew member replied, "Yeah, we went too far and he clipped us with his wing." The FAA said controllers had instructed the UPS jet to give way to the Copa plane.
Two Passengers Treated, No Hospitalizations
Two passengers were checked by paramedics for minor injuries, and neither required hospitalization, according to Miami-Dade Aviation. The Copa jet continued to the terminal, where everyone on board deplaned. The airline said the remaining passengers and crew were unharmed.
UPS acknowledged the incident in a statement, saying it was aware of a ground incident involving one of its aircraft in Miami. Both aircraft sustained damage while the investigation into how a Saturday-night taxi went wrong is underway.
The Airport Kept Moving
Airport officials said flights were redirected to other taxiways, allowing operations at Miami International to continue without significant disruption — an important detail for travelers, because South Florida's biggest airport was already working through the fallout of Friday's nationwide FAA ground stop, which had temporarily halted departures across the country.
So far, investigators say there is no indication the collision was caused by that earlier disruption, and the two incidents are being treated separately. Even so, it made for a rough stretch at MIA: a national ground stop on Friday, then two planes touching on a taxiway Saturday night.
What Comes Next
The FAA is investigating the collision, and the airline and cargo carrier are cooperating. For travelers flying through Miami in the coming days, the advice is the usual for a busy hub: keep an eye on flight status, expect occasional taxiway holds, and know that ground incidents this minor rarely change the big picture — the airport never closed, and no one was seriously hurt.
