Boeing 737 plane skids off runway and ends up in Florida river

Author : mamun Published: May 03, 2019

Updated

May 04, 2019 15:30:17

Photo:
The plane was not fully submerged in the shallow waters. (AP: Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office)

Officials say a charter plane traveling from Cuba to north Florida ended up in a river at the end of a runway.

Key points:

Officials said everyone on board survived the crash, with 21 people taken to hospital
It is not yet known what caused the plane to slide off the runway
The plane was headed from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba

A Naval Air Station Jacksonville news release said a Boeing 737 arriving from Naval Station Guantanamo Bay in Cuba crashed into the St Johns River on Friday night.

The naval base, also known as Gitmo, is a US naval base that incorporates Guantanamo Bay detention camp, known for holding suspected terrorists.

There were 136 passengers and seven crew on board.

“Every person is alive and accounted for,” the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office said on Twitter.

“The plane was not submerged.”

Some locals took to social media to voice concerns about alligators which may have been lurking in the shallows.

An alligator weighing more than 300 kilograms was caught in the river in 2016, Click Orlando reported, with the reptile measuring nearly four metres.

That same year, News4 Jax reported a boom in the alligator population in the area, with wildlife experts counting at least 108 in St Johns River.

External Link:

Tweet from myJFRD: “Ironically, our Special Operations team trained for an incident like this today with the marine units.”

The mayor of Jacksonville, Lenny Curry, said President Donald Trump had called him to offer help.

“No fatalities reported,” he said.

“We are all in this together. Absorb that.”

A passenger on board the plane, attorney Cheryl Bormann, told CNN in an interview that the flight, which had been four hours late in departing, made a “really hard landing” in Jacksonville amid thunder and lightning.

“We came down, the plane literally hit the ground and bounced, it was clear the pilot did not have total control of the plane, it bounced again,” she said, adding that the experience was “terrifying”.

Ms Bormann said she hit her head on a plastic tray on the seat in front of her as the plane veered sideways and off the runway.

“We were in the water, we couldn’t tell where we were, whether it was a river or an ocean,” she said.

Ms Bormann described emerging from the plane onto the wing as oxygen masks deployed and smelling the jet fuel that she said was leaking into the water.

She said that most of the passengers were connected to the military and helped each other out of their seats and onto a wing, where they were assisted after some time into a raft.

Boeing gathering information about crash

The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office said 21 people were transported to local hospitals, with all listed as being in good condition with no critical injuries.

The mayor of Jacksonville said on Twitter that crews were working to contain jet fuel on the water.

A photo posted by deputies showed a Miami Air International logo on the plane. The company didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Officials didn’t immediately say what caused the plane to leave the runway.

In a Tweet, Boeing said it was gathering information about the crash.

“An investigation into the mishap is underway,” a US Naval Air Station Jacksonville spokesperson said on Facebook.

External Link:

Tweet from Boeing Airplanes: “We are aware of an incident in Jacksonville, Fla. and are gathering information.”

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Topics:

disasters-and-accidents,

accidents,

air-and-space,