Copa jet with 172 aboard collides with UPS plane; 2 passengers hurt

A Copa Airlines passenger jet with 172 people aboard and a UPS cargo plane collided Saturday night on a taxiway at Miami International Airport, officials said.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Two Copa passengers received treatment at the scene for minor injuries, and neither required hospital transport. Copa said the others aboard were in good condition.

The Federal Aviation Administration said the Copa Boeing 737’s wingtip hit the nose of the UPS Boeing 767 as both aircraft taxied. Controllers had instructed the UPS crew to give way to the Copa flight. The FAA is investigating.

On a recording of communications with controllers, a Copa pilot said, "Somebody just hit us," according to Fox News.

A controller asked, "UPS 358, did you hit that aircraft?"

The UPS pilot replied, "Yeah, we went too far and he clipped us with his wing."

Copa said Flight CM427 from Panama City, Panama, had landed around 9 p.m. and was taxiing toward the terminal when contact occurred. "Preliminary information indicates that a cargo aircraft and the left wingtip of the Copa Airlines aircraft came into contact while both aircraft were taxiing," the airline said. The aircraft reached the terminal and all passengers got off there.

INFORMACIÓN IMPORTANTE:

Incidente del vuelo CM427 en el Aeropuerto Internacional de Miami

— Copa Airlines (@CopaAirlines) November 15, 2026

UPS Flight 358 was departing for Bogotá, Colombia.

Airport communications director Greg Chin said that at approximately 9:15 p.m., "an arriving aircraft and a departing aircraft made contact with each other at the intersection of two taxiways." Flights were being directed to other taxiways, he said, "so there is no impact to airport operations at this time."

Flightradar24 said on X that the planes collided "at low speed." Photographs from the scene showed damage to one plane’s nose.

The official extent of damage to each aircraft was not immediately known. Whether the National Transportation Safety Board would investigate remained unclear.

UPS said in a statement on X that it was "aware of an incident involving one of our aircraft on the ground in Miami." The company said, "Our crew is safe, and we are committed to working with authorities to determine what happened."

Copa pledged cooperation with authorities investigating the collision. In a news release quoted in translation by People, Copa apologized "for the inconvenience and concern that this situation may have caused."

The crash followed Friday’s nationwide FAA ground stop, which disrupted thousands of flights, by one day. Federal officials said switches and routers overloaded with data had caused radar and communications systems to become inconsistent during the outage.

FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said Saturday that U.S. flight schedules were expected to be back to normal by the end of Sunday.