Two planes collided on the tarmac at Miami International Airport on Saturday night, injuring two people just one day after a historic nationwide ground stop threw U.S. air travel into chaos.
The incident occurred around 9:15 p.m. when the left wingtip of a Copa Airlines Boeing 737, carrying 166 passengers and six crew members from Panama City, struck the nose of a UPS Boeing 767 cargo jet preparing to depart for Bogota.
In viral air traffic control audio, the Copa pilot can be heard reporting, “Somebody hit us,” before noting the aircraft was missing its left wingtip. The UPS pilot acknowledged the contact, stating, “We went too far, and then he clipped us with the wing.” Passenger Cesar Ferreira told CNN the cabin jerked abruptly sideways upon impact, though flight attendants quickly calmed travellers.
🚨 PLANES COLLIDE IN MIAMI:
A UPS Boeing 767 and a Copa Airlines 737 made contact on the ground at Miami International tonight, according to air traffic control audio.
The Copa pilot radios in: “Somebody hit us.”
Ground control fires back at UPS: “You’re supposed to give way to the 73 there… did you hit that aircraft?”
UPS: “Yeah, we went too far.”
Friday the whole country was grounded.
Tonight Love Field shut down over a reported bomb threat and two jets traded paint in Miami.
What a weekend to fly. https://t.co/s9sz7ACSvE
— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) November 15, 2026
Copa Airlines confirmed all occupants disembarked safely, and paramedics treated two passengers for minor injuries.
This marks the second major incident at the Miami hub in just over two months, following a fatal September 6 Amazon cargo plane runway overrun that killed five people.
The collision compounds a turbulent weekend for U.S. aviation. On Friday, a faulty L3Harris router triggered an FAA communication network outage, forcing a nearly five-hour nationwide flight suspension—the longest since September 2001—that disrupted over 20,000 flights. FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford stated airlines expect to resume normal schedules by Sunday evening.
