"Two airplanes have hit into each other on the runway at Heathrow Airport this evening (Wednesday, September 28). The nature of the incident was not clear at first, but witnesses report that the wings of two planes hit into each other. It is not believed to be a serious incident."
That’s just blatantly false. Every time a plane takes damage they have to do a full analysis of similar damage and flightworthiness. The people on call to do this aren’t cheap and great caution is taken in the procedures of moving planes to avoid damage of all natures.
No, it’s quite common. Planes collide on the ground all the time, at airports all over the world. Normally minor “oops” in ground handling, by the pilots but also can be pushers and such who are ferrying around airplanes. Runway entrance and exits are particularly hazardous and are marked that way.
Not only you need major mistakes by multiple people and systems for two planes to touch while taxing, but two planes colliding even in an apparently minor way is enough to ground the planes for controls.
I imagine there's a good chance that the plane could fly after this, but aviation is (rightfully) risk averse and expect it'll have a pass a full inspection before being cleared for flight again.
If it's just a wingtip Boeing sends a AOG (Airplane On Ground) team to repair it onsite. They remove the wing skin replace any ribs, spars, wiring, lighting, etc, that are damaged, before riveting a new skin over it.
But.. uncommon enough that people should care about it world wide each time it happens? If this happened at my nearest airport, I would expect to see it in the local paper. I definitely wouldn't expect people more than a couple hundred miles away from me to hear about it.
almost all of these are non-commercial; all but 1 of the commercial incidents from the past 10 days are due to striking birds in flight, and nothing with airport taxiing
"Two airplanes have hit into each other on the runway at Heathrow Airport this evening (Wednesday, September 28). The nature of the incident was not clear at first, but witnesses report that the wings of two planes hit into each other. It is not believed to be a serious incident."