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KINGSTON, Jamaica: An American Airlines flight from Miami with more than 150 aboard overshot a runway while landing during a heavy rainstorm in Kingston Tuesday night, injuring more than 40 people, officials said.
Flight 331 skidded across a road at Norman Manley International Airport and halted at the edge of the Caribbean Sea, apparently prevented from going into the water only by the upward slope of the sand. The nose of the jet was less than 10 feet from the water.
Some 44 passengers were taken to nearby hospitals with broken bones and back pains, Information Minister Daryl Vaz told The Associated Press. 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, said Tim Smith, an American Airlines spokesman at the company's headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas. Most of the injuries were cuts and bruises and none were life threatening, though he had no details, he said.
The Boeing 737-800, which originated at Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., had taken off from Miami International Airport at 8:52 p.m. and arrived in Kingston at 10:22 p.m. It was carrying 148 passengers and a crew of six, American said. The majority of those aboard were Jamaicans coming home for Christmas, Vaz said.
Those getting off the plane were bleeding, mostly from the upper parts of their bodies.
Passenger Pilar Abaurrea described a chaotic scene when the plane hit the ground with a loud crash skidded along the runway.
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