A mobile lounge at Washington Dulles International Airport crashed into a dock on Monday, Nov. 10, injuring multiple passengers and prompting an emergency response from authorities.
According to reports from UPI, the BBC and ABC News, the airport transport vehicle struck the dock at approximately 4:30 p.m. The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) confirmed that 18 passengers were taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Per the BBC, injured passengers were able to exit the mobile lounge using stairs, and the terminal also sustained structural damage as a result of the crash.
“The airport is open and operating as normal,” MWAA said in a statement, according to ABC News.
It remains unclear how many total passengers were inside the vehicle when the collision occurred, the BBC reported.
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Airport spokeswoman Crystal Nosal told outlets that the mobile lounge had traveled from Concourse D and struck the dock at an angle as it approached the terminal.
The airport currently uses 19 mobile lounges, each measuring 54 feet long and 16 feet wide, according to UPI. The carriers can accommodate up to 102 passengers, including 71 seated. The system has been in place since 1959, the BBC and UPI noted.
A former Trump administration official nominated to the MWAA board recently criticized the aging vehicles before the Senate, calling them a “relic of the past” and adding, “It’s an embarrassment that international travelers, visiting the capital of the most powerful nation in the world, are transported back to the sixties,” per the BBC.
In 2017, NBC Washington reported that the mobile lounge system had been involved in at least 16 collisions or mishaps over the previous decade.
