Plane Hits Light Pole in Newark Mid-Approach — And Why Flying Is Still Safer Than Your Morning Commute

It sounded like something out of a movie. A commercial jetliner on final approach to one of America’s busiest airports clipping a motorway light pole — striking a truck on the highway below and sending debris flying — before touching down safely as if nothing had happened. And yet, that is almost exactly what played out on Sunday afternoon at Newark Liberty International Airport, just outside New York City.

United Flight 169, a Boeing 767-400 arriving from Venice, Italy, struck a light pole above the southbound lanes of the New Jersey Turnpike at approximately 2 p.m. while on final approach to Runway 29. The collision caused damage to the pole and to a tractor-trailer travelling below on the roadway.

Despite the collision, the aircraft landed safely. All 221 passengers and 10 crew members on board were uninjured, and the plane taxied to the gate normally, sustaining only minor damage.

The truck driver was not as fortunate — though he was far luckier than many will have imagined. The driver, Warren Boardley of Baltimore, sustained cuts from broken glass to his arm and forearm but did not suffer serious injuries. He was able to safely pull over after the strike and contact his employer.

In dashcam video shared with NBC News, a loud whizzing sound can be heard before glass breaks as a piece of the light pole struck the vehicle while the driver was travelling on the turnpike.

What Do We Know About How It Happened?

New Jersey State Police said a preliminary investigation indicated a tyre from the plane’s landing gear and “the underside of the plane” hit both the pole and the tractor-trailer. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey confirmed the aircraft was on approach to Runway 29 when contact was made.

The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board confirmed they are both investigating the incident. Officials with the FAA and the New Jersey Turnpike Authority were on site Sunday evening, conducting inspections and gathering evidence.

United Airlines, in a statement, said: “We will conduct a rigorous flight safety investigation into the incident and our crew has been removed from service as part of the process.” Airport staff inspected the runway for debris, and normal operations at Newark quickly resumed.

Chuck Paterakis, who oversees transportation for Schmidt Bakery — the company whose truck was involved — summed up the mood perfectly: “Everybody — the driver and everybody on the plane — should be very fortunate. Because it could have been the opposite of what happened, and a little help from God went a long way tonight for everybody on the plane, and including the driver.”

Newark: An Airport Already Under the Microscope

The incident did not occur in a vacuum. Newark Liberty International Airport has been operating under extraordinary pressure for over a year, and African diaspora travellers passing through New York — a critical gateway hub for flights connecting to Lagos, Accra, Nairobi, Johannesburg, and cities across the continent — need to understand the full picture.

The FAA has proposed limiting Newark Airport to 72 operations per hour through October 2026, citing a combination of staffing shortages, equipment issues, and ongoing runway construction. The root of the problem lies in the air traffic control facility responsible for guiding planes in and out of Newark. The specific unit overseeing Newark, known as Area C, is just 48 percent staffed, with only 22 certified professional controllers out of a target of 46.

The technological picture is equally alarming. “We have computers, and I kid you not, today in 2025, that are based on Windows 95 and floppy disks,” said Nick Daniels, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, in testimony before Congress. The FAA has acknowledged that the average age of its control towers is 40 years, and that most radar systems are approaching the same age.

None of this means that flying through Newark is dangerous in absolute terms. But it does mean the system is under strain — and Sunday’s incident is, at minimum, a loud alarm bell that demands answers.

Why Air Travel Is Still, By Far, the Safest Way to Travel

Here is the context that every alarming aviation headline buries: commercial air travel remains, statistically, the safest form of long-distance transport ever devised by human beings.

The odds of dying in a commercial airplane crash are approximately 1 in 11 million flights. Compare this to roughly a 1 in 93 chance of dying in a car accident over a lifetime of driving. Per mile travelled, commercial aviation is approximately 95 times safer than automobile travel.

On average, someone would need to fly every single day for over 25,000 years to statistically encounter a fatal commercial airline accident.

Major airlines operating scheduled passenger service experienced no onboard fatalities and posted a fatal accident rate of 0.0 per 100,000 flight hours in 2024. Not low. Not minimal. Zero.

Between 2003 and 2023 — a full two decades — air travel in the United States recorded 675 serious injuries, compared with over 47 million injuries in passenger vehicles on US highways over the same period.

In 2025, the commercial aviation network safely transported more than five billion passengers across an estimated 35.2 million flights. Of those billions of journeys, fatal accidents involving commercial carriers remained in the single digits globally.

Why Do Aviation Incidents Feel So Frequent Right Now?

Two forces are at work. First, there is the media amplification effect: every near-miss, every runway excursion, every light pole strike on a New Jersey motorway goes instantly global. Incidents that would have been a local news item in 1995 are now live-streamed via dashcam footage before the aircraft has even parked at the gate.

Second, and more substantively, the US aviation system is genuinely grappling with structural challenges — a nationwide shortage that leaves the FAA approximately 3,500 air traffic controllers short of its target, combined with ageing infrastructure and record post-pandemic passenger volumes. These are real pressures that require urgent attention, and they are receiving it. The US Transportation Department has committed $12.5 billion to air traffic control modernisation.

But system pressure is not the same as danger to the passenger. The redundancies, cross-checks, training protocols, and engineering standards built into commercial aviation are so layered and rigorous that even a Boeing 767 clipping a motorway lamp post at approach speed lands safely, taxis to the gate, and everyone walks off for dinner.

What This Means for African and Diaspora Travellers

For Nigerians, Ghanaians, Kenyans, Zimbabweans, South Africans, and the broader African diaspora who rely on US connections — particularly through Newark and the wider New York metropolitan area — Sunday’s incident is a reminder to stay informed rather than afraid.

Newark is the primary hub for United Airlines’ direct routes to Africa and serves as a key connecting point for onward flights to Lagos, Accra, Nairobi, and Johannesburg. The airport’s ongoing challenges make it worth factoring carefully into your travel planning.

Practically speaking: build generous connection buffer time into any itinerary transiting through Newark. The FAA’s own data shows the airport operates with minimal scheduling flexibility, meaning any weather event, equipment issue, or staffing shortfall cascades quickly into delays.

But do not, for a single moment, let news of a light pole on the New Jersey Turnpike make you afraid to board your flight. The data is unambiguous: the most dangerous part of your journey to the airport is the drive to get there.

The Bottom Line

United Flight 169 is under investigation by both the FAA and the NTSB, and the crew has been stood down pending the outcome. The Port Authority confirmed runway operations resumed normally following debris inspection. The truck driver has been discharged from hospital.

What will likely emerge from this investigation is a story not of recklessness but of a system under strain in one of the world’s most congested airspace corridors — a system that, even under that strain, continues to deliver its primary promise: getting you there safely.

Fly. Stay informed. And the next time a headline about a plane scraping a lamp post makes your stomach drop, remember the number that matters most: 1 in 11 million.

Sources: CBS News New York, ABC7 New York, NBC News, FAA.gov, Airbus Flight Safety Statistics 2026, National Safety Council Injury Facts, USAFacts, Zayed Law Offices Aviation Statistics.

This article is for informational purposes only. Travel plans should be made based on current FAA and airline advisories.

Jules Nartey-Tokoli

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