Boeing 737 Skids Into St. Johns River in Jacksonville (original) (raw)

U.S.|Boeing 737 Skids Into St. Johns River in Jacksonville

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/03/us/jacksonville-plane-river.html

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A chartered jet in the St. Johns River on Friday night.Credit...Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, via Twitter

May 3, 2019

A Boeing 737 charter jet arriving at the Jacksonville, Fla., naval air station from Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, slid off the runway into the St. Johns River on Friday night, injuring at least 21 people, the authorities said.

All of the 136 passengers and seven crew members had been rescued by early Saturday morning, a Navy spokeswoman said. None of the injuries were life-threatening, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office said.

“I think it is a miracle,” Capt. Michael P. Connor, the commanding officer at Naval Air Station Jacksonville, said at a news conference early Saturday. “We could be talking about a different story.”

[Update:_ Jacksonville 737 passengers recount harrowing plane landing.]_

The sheriff’s office said the plane had never been submerged. Photos showed it floating on the St. Johns River in an image eerily reminiscent of the January 2009 emergency landing of a US Airways jet on the Hudson River.

The accident occurred at about 9:40 p.m. as the pilot attempted to land the jet amid thunder and heavy rains.

Early images from social media showed rescue teams scurrying over the plane. “While they work please pray,” Mayor Lenny Curry of Jacksonville said in a Twitter message posted at 10:30 p.m.

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