NEW YORK — A plane from Atlanta skidded off a runway at LaGuardia Airport while landing Thursday, crashing through a chain-link fence and sending passengers saddled with bags and bundled up in heavy coats and scarves sliding down an inflated chute to safety on the snowy pavement.
Delta Flight 1086, carrying 125 passengers and five crew members, veered off the runway at around 11:10 a.m., authorities said. Emergency responders are still assessing people, but any injuries appear to be minor, the Fire Department of New York said.
Passenger Jared Faellaci told Channel 2's Richard Elliot, "As soon as the wheels hit the runway, we knew there was an issue because the wheels didn't grab."
Faellaci says he's surprised bad weather didn't force his flight to be canceled.
"We started to skid," Faellaci said. "Literally, immediately, and we started to skid to the left of the runway and went off the runway."
Faellaci told Channel 2 Action News the plane crashed through a fence, and into an embankment. The front end of the plane dangled precariously over the East River.
"Literally, no one moved when we stopped, because we didn't know if part of the plane was hanging over water," Faellaci said. "Part of it was on land".
Images showed the plane resting in several inches of snow. Passengers trudged through the snow in an orderly line after climbing off the plane.
Channel 2 Action News obtained video from a passenger on the plane showing the passengers being evacuated.
"I just survived a plane crash," Atlanta resident Jason Aspes could be heard saying on the video.
Cellphone video shot by Aspes shows passengers hopping out of the plane and sliding down the wing because the emergency slide didn't deploy.
Passengers described the plane slipping and sliding as soon as it touched down at LaGuardia Airport.
"It took a spin to the left. We looked out the window and we could see the wing was hitting a fence," one passenger said.
LaGuardia eventually reopened around 7 p.m., but New York's JFK airport was still experiencing delays into Thursday night.
Passengers on Delta Flight 719 talked to Channel 2 Action News via a video call after sitting on the plane on the tarmac for more than eight hours.
"They let us off once and then they made us come back on and they said if we get off again that we won't get our bags and if they take off it's our problem," passenger Richard Price said.
Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines said the passengers were bused to a terminal. It said the airline will work with authorities to figure out what caused the crash.
Joe Pentangelo, a spokesman with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, said the plane is apparently leaking fuel.
Another Port Authority spokesman, Steve Coleman, said both of the airport's runways are closed until further notice, which is standard procedure after such incidents. He said everyone on the plane has now gotten off.
The National Transportation Safety Board is headed to LaGuardia.
The Delta flight was landing on LaGuardia's main runway — a stretch of pavement that is 7,003 feet long and 150 feet wide. On the right side of the runway are a taxiway and the airport terminals. On the left is a berm, fence and then the waters of Flushing Bay.
In 2005, a safety buffer was added to the end of the runway at LaGuardia, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. It was updated just last year. Called an engineered material arresting system, the buffer is typically a crushable material that can extend 1,000 feet beyond the runway. It is designed to slow or stop a plane that overruns, undershoots or veers off the side of the runway.
The tires of the aircraft sink into the lightweight material and the aircraft is slows as it rolls through the material.
In the case of Flight 1086, it appears that the jet didn't end in the buffer zone but instead veered off the runway and into the berm separating the airport from Flushing Bay.
LaGuardia is one of the nation's most-congested airports. It's also one of the more difficult ones to land at due to its close proximity to three other busy airports. When rain or snow reduces visibility, the number of landings slows down. The same occurs during high winds.
The airport has had its share of planes mishaps. In July 2013, the front landing gear of a Southwest Airlines flight arriving at the airport collapsed right after the plane touched down on the runway, sending the aircraft skidding before it came to a halt. Ten passengers had minor injuries. Federal investigators found that the jet touched down on its front nose wheel before the sturdier main landing gear in back touched down.
The last deadly crash at LaGuardia happened March 23, 1992, when a US Airways jet carrying 51 people crashed while trying to take off in a snowstorm. The plane skidded part way into the frigid waters of Flushing Bay, and 27 people died.
WSBTV
