Delta plane appears to have made crash landing on day where travel woes caused by a winter storm are plaguing the US from the south-east to New England

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

A plane skidded off the runway at LaGuardia airport in New York on Thursday, the latest example of travel woes plaguing the US from Texas to Connecticut as a major storm stretched across the country.

FDNY (@FDNY) Laguardia Airport: 131 passengers/crew on plane. 24 non-life-threatening injuries, 3 of whom transported at this time pic.twitter.com/UlvDtcuHUF

The runway had recently been plowed and two pilots had reported good stopping conditions at LaGuardia airport when Delta flight 1086 landed, skidded off the runway, nosed through a fence and stopped feet before Flushing Bay.

The plane was arriving from Atlanta when it landed on slippery runway 13, at about 11am Thursday morning. All 127 passengers got off the plane safely, though there are conflicting reporters about how many minor injuries were sustained. The New York fire department reported 26 injuries and 3 hospitalizations, while the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey reported six.



“This particular runway had been plowed shortly before the incident and pilots on other planes reported good breaking conditions,” said Pat Foye, executive director of the Port Authority, which manages airport operations in New York. “I think the pilot did everything he could to slow the plane down.”



The plane was landing during a massive winter storm that stretched from Texas to Connecticut Thursday morning. The same system that was dropping snow on New York at a rate of 1-2in per hour was burying Kentucky in up to 2ft of snow.



Foye said that while the Port Authority manages the airport’s runways, the Federal Aviation Administration is responsible for determining plane approaches and which runways are operable.



He added that, “Ultimately, obviously, [it’s] the pilot’s decision to land.”



Air Traffic Control audio, which can be heard at LiveATC.net, reveals what must have been a shocking moment for controllers working in LaGuardia’s tower.

Flight 1086 was regularly radioing back to controllers, before suddenly failing to respond to call-backs.



“Delta 1086 ... Delta 1086? Delta 1086? Delta 1086? Delta 1086 – tower, you with me?” says the air traffic controller. A few difficult to distinguish moments later, the tower calls again. “Delta 1086, tower,” until another voice closes the runway, and the “red team” is called onto runway 13.



“Tower – you have an aircraft off 31 on north vehicle service road. Please advise airport is closed at this time,” says a worker about the McDonnell Douglas MD-80 aircraft. The tower then quickly worked to reroute several planes.

The National Transportation Safety Administration is en route to investigation the incident, remove flight data recorders and transport the recorders to Washington DC to analyze the event.

The NTSB will likely also collect photos and videos, interview witnesses and listen to air traffic control recordings, as is standard for the agency’s thorough investigations.

Not long before the plane’s landing, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey reported “worsening” conditions in the area, reporting the closing of trucking at a shipping terminal in Newark, New Jersey.



Across the country, airports were reported deteriorating conditions late Thursday morning, and cancelations and delays were mounting. More than 4,000 flights around the US were canceled by noon, as far south as Dallas, Texas, extending to LaGuardia in New York and Reagan National in Washington.



Foye said a fuel leak reported immediately after the plane left the runway had also been contained. At the time of the accident, about one gallon of fuel per minute was leaking from the plane. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation is on scene investigating.



LaGuardia shut its runways as a result of the incident, but was planning to reopen one at 2pm. The closures could ripple through air transit around the country. FlightAware, which usually tracks such cancelations and delays, was experiencing technical issues Thursday afternoon.







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Jaime Primak (@JaimePrimak) We just crash landed at LGA. I'm terrified. Please...