Obama's plane clips another aircraft at Midway Airport

This year's hectic campaign schedule is tough on the politicians and their campaign staff alike. Moving quickly from caucus to primary throughout the country teams are worked to exhaustion, leaving one state after a late rally to speak first thing in the morning five states over. I heard John Edwards on the phone with NPR the morning after the Iowa caucus (from New Hampshire) and he sounded like he had just been run over by a truck.

It's difficult to function on so little sleep, let alone fly a Gulfstream II over the nation's skies, so perhaps I should be less critical of Barack Obama's pilot who early last Saturday morning clipped a stationary aircraft on the grounds of Chicago's Midway airport. Apparently the damage was minimal and Obama's plans were only gently disrupted, but being a pilot and all, one should definitely be aware of surrounding aircraft (especially those that aren't moving) when taxiing around the airport.

I suppose senator Obama is lucky that the incident wasn't more severe. A sharper turn by the pilot could have resulted in serious injury to some valuable staffers.

Interestingly enough, airplane geeks can't seem to find note of the incident on any of the airport logs for Midway. Conspiracy theory, anyone?

Filed under: Transportation, News