An American Airlines flight from Miami with more than 150 people aboard overshot a runway while landing during a heavy rainstorm in Kingston on Tuesday night, injuring more than 40 people, officials said.
Flight 331 skidded down the runway of Norman Manley International Airport in the Jamaican capital. Some 44 passengers were taken to hospitals with broken bones and back pains, Jamaican Information Minister Daryl Vaz said.
Four people were seriously injured, said Paul Hall, senior vice president of airport operations.
The plane’s fuselage was cracked, its right engine broke off from the impact and the left main landing gear collapsed, airline spokesman Tim Smith said at the company’s headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas.
Most of the injuries were cuts and bruises and none was life threatening, he said.
US federal investigators will analyze whether the plane should have been landing in such bad weather, Smith said.
“That’s obviously one of the things they will look at,” he said, adding that other planes landed safely amid heavy rain.
Some passengers leaving the plane were seen with cuts on their faces or bloody lips. Some were visibly shaken as they bustled out of the terminal wrapped in red blankets, while others ducked under umbrellas to escape the heavy downpour.
Smith said most people who had been treated at a hospital were released by yesterday morning.
Passenger Pilar Abaurrea described a chaotic scene when the plane hit the ground with a loud crash and skidded on the runway.
“All of a sudden, when it hit the ground, the plane was kind of bouncing, someone said the plane was skidding and there was panic,” Abaurrea of Keene, New Hampshire, said.
Meanwhile, a Ryanair plane slid off the runway after landing at a Scottish airport yesterday.
The Irish budget airline said all the 123 passengers and six crew on the flight from Dublin to Prestwick airport, close to Glasgow, were safe after the incident.
“While taxiing from the runway the aircraft encountered ice and slid,” Ryanair said.
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