Iron Maiden’s Private Plane “Badly Damaged” in Collision at Airport

Ed Force One, the Boeing 747 jumbo jet that serves as a private plane for Iron Maiden, was involved in a collision Saturday morning in Santiago, Chile.  

The band had just played at in front of over 58,000 fans at Santiago's Estadio Nacional Julio Martínez Prádanos Friday night. The band said in a statement:

Ed Force One was this morning tethered to a tow truck to be taken for refueling prior to flying over the Andes to Cordoba for the next show. 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 aircrafts 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.

Reports indicate that an investigation into the accident has been launched by Chile's Departamento Prevención de Accidentes.