A United Airlines pilot said that he heard a thump just before landing at Newark Liberty International Airport in May but did not realise that his plane had clipped a light pole that crashed onto a tractor-trailer, injuring its driver, an investigative report revealed on June 4.

The jet’s co-pilot had warned the pilot that “you are still slow and a little low” as they descended over the New Jersey Turnpike on a gusty afternoon on May 3, according to the report issued by the National Transportation Safety Board.

As the plane, a Boeing 767 carrying 220 passengers from Venice, approached the airport, it had to shift its route to land into the wind on a runway that begins just west of the turnpike, the report said. The 4.6m tall light pole that was struck by the plane stood along the southbound side of the turnpike, it said.

None of the passengers or any of the plane’s 11 crew members were injured, but the plane sustained “substantial” damage, including three punctures to its fuselage, one of which was nearly 1.2m long, the report said. Investigators also found slash marks on a landing gear tyre on the plane’s left side.

The truck, which was transporting bread and rolls, had large holes in its windshield and a “major puncture” in its trailer, the report said. “There was no evidence of tyre marks on either the tractor cab or trailer,” it said.

The truck’s driver, Warren Boardley, was taken to a hospital with minor injuries and later released. Boardley’s employer, Northeast Foods in Baltimore, did not respond to a request for comment on June 4. A Baltimore lawyer who was representing Boardley after the crash, J. Wyndal Gordon, also did not respond to a request for comment.

United Airlines declined to comment on the report.

The report, which was preliminary, did not assig...