A routine morning at Los Angeles International Airport turned hazardous Tuesday when a departing Delta Air Lines jet struck a stationary Air Canada aircraft being towed to its gate, shearing the Canadian carrier’s horizontal stabilizer and prompting an immediate federal investigation into how two commercial planes came into contact on an active taxiway.
The collision occurred shortly after 10 a.m. local time. Delta Flight 7, a wide-body aircraft preparing for takeoff, was moving along Taxiway B when its left wingtip made contact with the tail section of Air Canada Flight 785. The Air Canada jet, an Airbus A330 that had just completed its journey from Toronto Pearson International Airport, had been brought to a halt short of its assigned gate while ground crews manoeuvred it into position.
Contested sequence of events
Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Donnell Evans confirmed the basic mechanics of the incident but stopped short of assigning blame. “Delta Air Lines Flight 7 was taxiing for departure when its left wingtip clipped the horizontal stabilizer of Air Canada Flight 785,” Evans said in a statement released Tuesday afternoon. He added that the Canadian aircraft “was being towed when it stopped short of its gate,” a detail that raises immediate questions about whether the tow crew had clearance to hold in that location or whether the Delta flight crew received proper taxi instructions.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada has been notified and is expected to deploy investigators to Los Angeles within 48 hours. Under international aviation protocols, the TSB holds observer status in any accident involving a Canadian-registered aircraft or operator, regardless of jurisdiction. The National Transportation Safety Board will lead the investigation on U.S. soil.
No injuries, but structural damage significant
Both airlines moved quickly to emphasise that no passengers or crew sustained injuries. Air Canada reported that Flight 785 carried 298 passengers and 12 crew members, all of whom disembarked normally via air stairs after the tow operation was aborted. Delta stated that Flight 7’s 314 passengers and 14 crew members were deplaned and rebooked on alternative services.
The physical damage, however, is far from trivial. The horizontal stabilizer — a critical flight control surface that governs pitch stability — absorbed the full force of the Delta wingtip strike. Preliminary photographs circulating among aviation safety networks show the Air Canada jet’s tail cone crushed inward, with composite skin delamination visible along the starboard elevator hinge line. Delta’s left wingtip fence and outboard aileron also sustained impact damage.
Both aircraft have been grounded pending comprehensive structural inspections. Repair timelines remain uncertain; a horizontal stabilizer replacement on an A330 typically requires the aircraft to enter a heavy maintenance hangar for three to four weeks.
Systemic questions for a congested hub
Los Angeles International handles more than 1,500 aircraft movements on a typical weekday, making it one of the world’s most complex taxiway environments. The airport’s ongoing $14.5 billion capital improvement programme has reconfigured several taxiway intersections in recent years, but controllers and pilots have long flagged the Taxiway B corridor — where Tuesday’s collision occurred — as a persistent congestion choke point.
The incident marks the third runway incursion or surface collision at LAX since January 2025. In March, a Southwest Airlines 737 crossed an active runway without clearance while a United Airlines 787 was on its takeoff roll. In July, a cargo tug collided with a parked Alaska Airlines jet at Gate 53. None resulted in injuries, but the pattern has drawn scrutiny from the NTSB’s Office of Aviation Safety.
Why it Matters
When two fully loaded wide-body aircraft make contact on a taxiway in clear daylight, it signals a breakdown not of technology but of the human-system interface that underpins modern aviation safety. The fact that a tow crew stopped a 240-tonne airliner in a live taxiway lane — and that a departing crew failed to see or avoid it — suggests procedural gaps that no amount of radar or signage can fully mitigate. For the travelling public, the takeaway is uncomfortable: the most dangerous phase of flight may no longer be the climb or descent, but the slow crawl between gate and runway where coordination fractures and vigilance wanes.
