Miami, December 23: An American Airlines flight with 152 people on board overshot the runway and broke into two pieces after landing at an airport in Jamaica’s Kingston city, injuring at least 40 persons.
The Boeing 737, carrying 145 passengers and seven crew members, was flying from Miami and crashed at the Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston around 10.22 pm local time last night after the plane overshot the runway.
The flight, which originated from Washington, had just arrived from Miami in pouring rain when the incident occurred, passengers on the plane told the local newspaper ‘Jamaica Observer’.
“The plane crashed and broke almost in front of me,” a shaken Naomi Palmer, a passenger of the plane, was quoted as saying. She said she was feeling some pain and was being supported by a friend outside the arrival area at the airport.
Forty passengers were injured in the crash of the American Airlines Flight AA331. “The injured passengers have been taken to the Kingston Public Hospital,” Jamaican Information Minister Daryl Vaz was quoted as saying by the paper. “There are no reports of fatalities.”
Vaz along with Transport and Works Minister Mike Henry and National Security Minister Dwight Nelson rushed to the scene and was engaged in determining if anyone from the plane was missing.
-PTI