A Delta jet landing at La Guardia Airport during Thursday’s snowstorm nearly wound up in the water when it slid off a runway and smashed through a fence — stopping mere feet from icy Flushing Bay.

The left wing of the MD-88 was mangled in the 11:05 a.m. crash, spilling jet fuel and forcing the 127 passengers and five crew members to clamber out and scramble across the snowy tarmac.

No one was seriously hurt, but the FDNY said 28 people suffered minor injuries, with five taken to hospitals.

“I feared for my life,” said one passenger, Danielle Matthews, of Brooklyn. “We jumped off the right wing. I didn’t want to linger in case something exploded.”

Delta Flight 1086, which took off from Atlanta at 9:23 a.m., was scheduled to land at La Guardia at 11 a.m. But after touching down on Runway 13, the twin-engine jet veered off the left side of the tarmac, 4,500 to 5,000 feet along the 7,000-foot landing strip, Port Authority Executive Director Pat Foye said.

Photos taken from the water show the damaged nose jutting over the 12-foot sea wall through a large section of broken fence.

Passenger Malcolm Duckett, 23, a marketing executive from Georgia, said he could see the damaged wing from his seat.

“It was pretty torn up. It was pretty brutal because it was gliding across a fence for about 10 seconds. It was knocking the fence as it was going,” he said.

“I could see gas coming out, and I knew we had to get off the plane.”

Passengers said some on board began praying as the plane skidded.

“The staff and airline crew, they were nervous,” said Thomas Matthews, Danielle’s husband and an MTA bus driver. “The stewardess told us to jump off the wing.”

Passengers climbed out of the plane and over the wing, helped down by emergency crews. They also exited via a cargo port in the rear.

Passengers scrambled out of the plane over its right wing, helped down by emergency crews, and also climbing out of a cargo port in the rear.

The near-disaster echoed other mishaps at La Guardia, which is notorious among pilots for its relatively short runways and waterfront location, both of which leave little room for error, especially in bad weather.

About three inches of snow had fallen the airport at the time, Accu-Weather meteorologist Brian Edwards said.

Fog and snow limited visibility to one-quarter of a mile, and there were winds coming from the north at 11 mph, he said.

The cloud ceiling was 1,200 feet, which Edwards said was lower than what pilots generally like.

Snow continued falling intermittently throughout the day with total accumulations expected to reach eight inches Thursday night.

The PA’s Foye said it was unclear what caused the jet to skid, noting two planes landed shortly before Flight 1086 with their crews reporting “good braking action on the runways.”

He also said Runway 13 “had been plowed literally minutes before.”

It was “ultimately” the unidentified pilot’s decision to land, Foye said, adding that the pilot “did everything he could to slow the aircraft down.”

In a statement, Delta said it “will work with all authorities and stakeholders to look into what happened in this incident.”

La Guardia was shut down for about three hours following the accident, with its other runway reopening shortly before 2 p.m.

But about 80 percent of Thursday’s remaining departures — 764 flights — were canceled, with another 67 delayed.

In addition, 622 arrivals were canceled.

Federal Aviation Administration records show the jet was built in 1986. Delta said its last “major maintenance overhaul” took place in December 2010.

According to a recording of LaGuardia air traffic controllers posted on LiveATC.net, the plane’s crew didn’t respond to several calls during its approach.

When the jet slid off the runway, a controller immediately instructed another Delta flight to abort its landing, and a responder on the ground was heard asking if the tower was in touch with the Flight 1086 pilot.

“I’m calling up . . . No response,” the controller said.

“OK, sir, he is leaking fuel on the left side of his aircraft . . . heavily. His wing is ruptured,” the responder said.