Damage to Lufthansa A380 plane at Changi Airport - Sunday, Nov 06, 2011

SINGAPORE - Nearly 500 passengers missed their flight to Frankfurt when the wing of a Lufthansa Airbus A380 jet was damaged by an aerobridge at Changi Airport.

No one was hurt as the plane was empty at the time of the incident, reported The Straits Times (ST).

Shin Min Daily reported that the accident occurred at around 11pm at the waiting area of the airport's Terminal 2.

A spokesperson for the Changi Airport group confirmed that the wing of the Lufthansa plane was struck by the boarding bridge, the Chinese daily reported.

Flight LH779 could not take off as scheduled at 11.55pm on Saturday as the airline decided to ground the flight for safety reasons and to undertake repairs.

Mr Frank Puettmann, Lufthansa's head of corporate communications for Asia Pacific confirmed the incident and told ST that the upper-deck aerobridge collided with its parked and completely empty aircraft and caused damage in one of the wings.

Lufthansa is now working with local authorities to investigate how the incident happened.

The Lufthansa A380 Airbus had flown into Singapore Oct 31 and commenced daily flights from Singapore to Frankfurt.

Lufthansa had arranged for all passengers on board to stay in a hotel after the accident, and absorbed the travel cost of those passengers who had to switch to other flights, a man only identified as Mr Wong, told Shin Min.

Mr Wong's two British friends had originally prepared to fly out on the affected flight, but due to the unexpected incident, they had to switch to a Singapore Airlines flight which left this morning at 9am.

He revealed that his friends were a middle-aged couple who are both working professionals and were on a holiday in Singapore.

As of yesterday evening, the affected aircraft had not been cleared by Lufthansa Technik, the Lufthansa Group's maintenance-services wing.

Other Lufthansa flights out of Changi Airport were not affected by the incident.