Taxiing Biplane Crashes Into Parked Aircraft at Galveston Airport

The Waco YMF-5 is a modern reproduction of a 1930s-era biplane, known for its use in aerobatic performances and recreational flying.

Rudy Blalock

Published: 3/25/2026, 4:45:19 PM EDT

Taxiing Biplane Crashes Into Parked Aircraft at Galveston Airport — A Waco YMF-5D biplane sits on the runway in Khartoum, Sudan, during the Vintage Air Rally on Nov. 20, 2016. (Ashraf Shazly/AFP via Getty Images)

A vintage biplane clipped a parked plane while making its way to a hangar at a Texas airport Tuesday morning, the latest in a string of aviation incidents to rattle the United States in recent weeks.

The collision occurred around 10:45 a.m. local time at Scholes International Airport in Galveston, Texas, when a Waco YMF-5—a classic open-cockpit biplane—made contact with a Diamond DA-40 that was sitting stationary on the tarmac, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The FAA said it will investigate the incident.

The pilot of the Waco was the only person aboard that plane at the time. The Diamond DA-40 had two people on board when it was struck, the FAA said. The agency did not immediately release information about whether anyone was injured or the extent of damage to either plane.

The Waco YMF-5 is a modern reproduction of a 1930s-era biplane, known for its use in aerobatic performances and recreational flying. The Diamond DA-40 is a single-engine, four-seat composite plane popular among flight training programs and private pilots.

Just two days earlier, federal investigators were combing through the wreckage of an Air Canada regional jet that slammed into a fire truck while landing at New York's LaGuardia Airport late Sunday night, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. That crash killed both pilots and sent dozens of passengers and two Port Authority firefighters to the hospital.

In that accident, Jazz Aviation Flight 8646, operating as Air Canada Express, struck an airport rescue and firefighting vehicle as it touched down on runway 4 around 11:37 p.m. ET, according to NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Hammond. The fire truck had been responding to a separate emergency aboard a United Airlines flight whose pilot had reported an odor onboard, according to Port Authority Executive Director Kathryn Garcia.

One of the two pilots killed in the LaGuardia crash was identified as Antoine Forest, a Quebec native in his 30s who had dreamed of flying since childhood, his family told the Toronto Star. Forest had been serving as first officer on the Bombardier CRJ900.

"He was always taking courses and flying. He never stopped," Forest's great-aunt, Jeannette Gagnier, told the Star.

FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford described the two men who died as "two young men at the start of their careers.”

On Saturday, a single-engine Cessna carrying a family of five—including a 3-month-old infant and a 4-year-old child—crashed shortly after takeoff on a grass runway on Upper Captiva Island in Florida, according to the Lee County Sheriff's Office. The plane clipped a fence on takeoff, spinning off course and coming down roughly 20 feet from the fence line. Remarkably, no one on board was hurt.

"Once I got the door open, they handed them out to me, and it was good, because they were both alive," said witness Peter Raby, who had been traveling nearby in a golf cart and rushed to help pull the children from the wreckage, according to WINK News.

The FAA is leading the investigation into the Florida crash, Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno said.