United Airlines flight landing at Newark Airport hits light pole, truck on New Jersey Turnpike

Roni Jacobson, New York Daily News on May 4, 2026

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NEW YORK — A United Airlines flight hit a light pole and a truck on the New Jersey Turnpike as it was coming in for a landing at Newark Liberty International Airport on Sunday afternoon, sending the truck driver to the hospital with minor injuries, authorities said.

Despite the collision, the aircraft en route from Italy landed safely, and none of the 221 passengers or 10 crew members onboard were injured, a spokesperson for the airline said.

Wild dashcam footage from the truck, a tractor-trailer carrying baked goods, shows the interior of the cab in the moments before and after the collision, as the driver appears to notice the rapidly descending plane just before impact.

“The driver experienced a commercial plane’s tires landing on the tractor or brushing the top of the tractor,” said Chuck Paterakis, vice president of transportation for the bakery company that owns the truck.

The truck was en route to deliver bread to the airport when it was grazed by the plane. Boardley sustained cuts from broken glass to his arm and forearm but did not suffer serious injuries, Paterakis told ABC7.

The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the incident.

United Airlines is conducting its own investigation into what happened, a spokesperson said. Normal operations at the airport resumed shortly after the impact.

The flight, UA169, was arriving from Italy.

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