‘I think it is a miracle:’ All 143 survive jet slide into Fla. river
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A militarycharted jet carrying 143 people landed hard, then bounced and swerved as the pilot struggled to control it amid thunder and lightning, ultimately skidding off the runway and coming to a crashing halt in a river at Naval Air Station Jacksonville.
It meant chaos and terror for passengers in the Boeing 737, as the plane jolted back and forth and oxygen masks deployed, then overhead bins opened sending contents spilling out.
But authorities said everyone on board emerged without critical injuries Friday night, lining up on the wings as they waited to be rescued.
The charter flight slid off the runway Friday evening and abruptly landed in the St. Johns River in Jacksonville.
The Miami Air International Boeing 737, inbound from the Naval Station Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, skidded about 9:40 p.m., the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department said. There were 136 passengers and seven crew members aboard, all of whom survived. Twenty-one people were transported to local hospitals, according to the fire department.
Capt. Michael Connor, the commanding officer of NAS Jacksonville, said the passengers were a mix of military personnel and families, and a few civilians.
“I think it is a miracle,” Connor said Friday night. “We could be talking about a different story this evening.”
The NTSB sent a team of investigators Saturday to the crash site in north Florida, where the aircraft was still partially submerged in shallow water and its nose cone was sliced off, apparently from the impact. Several pets were still on the plane as well, and their status wasn’t immediately clear. A navy statement early Saturday offering “hearts and prayers” to their owners said safety issues prevented rescuers from immediately retrieving the animals.
It was not immediately clear what caused the plane to overshoot the runway, but it landed in a thunderstorm, with lightning nearby and heavy rain on the runway, according to the Weather Network.
Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry announced Friday that teams had quickly contained any jet fuel from contaminating the river water. The White House also called to offer assistance, Curry said.
Coincidentally, the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue division had trained its Special Operations team and marine units in protocol for a similar incident earlier Friday.
In a statement early Saturday, Boeing extended its “well wishes to all those involved.”
The plane, a Boeing 737-800, first flew in April 2001 and is the oldest of six aircraft in Miami Air International’s fleet, according to the Aviation Safety Network. It has been leased in several stints to airlines in Europe.
The U.S. Navy operates a base at Guantanamo Bay, on land it leases from the Cuban government. Since 2002, there has been a military prison at the base.
Cheryl Bormann, a criminal defense attorney from Chicago who was a passenger on the flight, told CNN they flew through thunderstorms on their approach to Jacksonville.
“As we went down, we had a really hard landing,” she said. “And then the plane bounced and screeched and bounced some more ... then it came to a complete like crash stop.”
When things calmed down in the cabin, passengers tried to figure out where they had landed. “We were in water,” Bormann said. “We couldn’t tell where we were, whether it was a river or an ocean.”