A bakery truck from Baltimore somehow found itself in a tango with a landing jet at Newark Liberty International Airport. Yes, an actual commercial airliner wheel—a Boeing 767-400 operated by United Airlines—reportedly struck a delivery truck hauling baked goods. Because apparently, 2026 needed a new genre: runway slapstick.
Editor’s Note: An earlier version of the story reported that the truck was clipped by the plane itself, but it appears unclear whether the wheel was still attached to the landing gear or if it fell loose. The headline and post have been corrected.
Let’s set the scene. A driver is cruising from Baltimore to New Jersey. Normal day, right? Drop off some bread, maybe complain about traffic on I-95. Instead, he gets swiped by a descending aircraft part. Not metaphorically. Literally.
Senior VP of Transportation & Logistics, Chuck Paterakis, says the driver was just doing his route when—boom—aviation meets carbohydrates. The driver, incredibly, only suffered minor injuries, per Fox Baltimore. Which raises the obvious question: how does someone walk away from getting clipped by a jetliner wheel? And the even bigger one: how does this happen in the first place?
A spokesperson for United offered the corporate equivalent of we have no clue: “Our maintenance team is evaluating damage to the aircraft and we will investigate how this occurred.”
No fatalities, thankfully. Just minor injuries, a dented jet, and a story that will live forever in the “you can’t make this up” hall of fame.
When you’re just singing to the radio on a regular workday, and you get hit by a PLANE. pic.twitter.com/OdoGPvSovs
— thedailybs w/ Snerdley (@thedailybs_Bo) May 4, 2026
