Rock band, Iron Maiden‘s jet was involved in an accident after it collided with a ground tug at the airport in Santiago, Chile Saturday. The band is now scrambling to make new arrangements to get themselves and their equipment to Argentina for their concert tomorrow night.
The iconic airplane, which is piloted by Bruce Dickinson, the band’s lead singer, suffered damage to two of its engines while injuring two ground tug crew members. Both were transported to the hospital. Their condition was not immediately reported.
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They broke the news on their Facebook page, where they included the above picture and another showing the damage. According to the post, the plane was being towed in order to be refueled prior to their flight to Cordoba, Argentina. “On moving, the steering pin that is part of the mechanism that connects the ground tug to the aircraft seemingly fell out. On making a turn the aircraft had no steering and collided with the ground tug badly damaging the undercarriage, two of the aircraft’s engines and injuring two ground tug operators, both of whom have been taken to hospital. We hope of course that they make a full and speedy recovery and we will be closely monitoring their progress. The flight engineers are on site and evaluating the damage, but their initial report is that the engines have suffered large damage and will require an extended period of maintenance and possibly two new engines.”
“We are currently making contingency arrangements to get to the show in Cordoba tomorrow with band, crew and equipment intact,” they continued. “Fortunately the 20 tons of equipment had not been loaded onto EF1 at the time of the accident. Although this is tragic for our beautiful plane we do not expect this to affect our concert schedule including the next 2 shows in Cordoba and Buenos Aires. And we hope to find a new Ed Force One to continue this adventure with us in the near future. We will keep everyone updated when we know more, so keep checking only on this site for official news.” h/t ultimateclassicrock
Iron Maiden is currently in the middle of their 2016 world tour in support of their album, The Book of Souls.