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Iron Maiden’s airplane was badly damaged in a Saturday morning incident at an airport in Santiago, Chile.
Following the group’s March 11 Book Of Souls world tour stop at Estadio Nacional, the accident occurred when Ed Force One was being taken for refueling at Comodoro Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport prior to flying over the Andes to Cordoba, Argentina for their March 13 concert at Estadio Mario Kempes.
The plane was tethered to a tow truck when 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.
The band says: “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. Fortunately the 20 tons of equipment had not been loaded onto EF1 at the time of the accident.”
While the Boeing 747 heads for repairs, Iron Maiden manager Rod Smallwood assures fans the recently-launched 2016 tour will continue as scheduled.
Smallwood says: “We are happy to tell our fans in Cordoba that our Killer Krew has sorted out all logistics for us to be there with our full show for you all tomorrow. We expect no disruption to the tour in any way and are looking for a replacement 747 Ed Force One while our current beauty is healed. Until then, believe me, we will get to you all on this tour one way or another wherever you are.
“We are also delighted to say that we have been officially informed that the two Chilean airport staff who were injured following the malfunction of the tow truck connecting bolt will make a complete recovery. Best wishes to them and their families.”
Iron Maiden kicked off the tour in support of 2015’s The Book Of Souls just two weeks ago in Florida, and recently shared a video recap of the first few dates of the trek.
