Ten people were injured on Monday when the landing gear on a Southwest Airlines jet collapsed on touchdown at New York City's LaGuardia Airport, officials...
said.
The passengers were treated at the scene, with six being taken to hospital with minor injuries, said Thomas Bosco, acting director of aviation for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which oversees the area airports. The six crew members were taken to another hospital for observation.
The airport was closed for more than an hour after the Boeing 737 jet landed with its 150 passengers and crew about 5.45pm local time (22.45pm BST).
Emergency vehicles surrounded the aircraft and emergency passenger exits were lowered, TV images showed.
"The aircraft landed on runway 4 and the landing gear collapsed, the nose wheel collapsed," Bosco told reporters.
Passengers on the flight described a rough touchdown.
"It was just a bang and a bounce and then just a slam on the brakes and then it was a skidding feeling. You could tell they were trying to stop the plane," Kathy Boles told CNN. "It was very clear as soon as we went down that something was really wrong."
Bosco said there was no advance warning of any possible problem before the landing.
A passenger, Anniebell Hanna, 43, said the flight had been delayed before taking off from Nashville, Tennessee. Passengers had heard an announcement saying "something was wrong with a tyre", she said, waiting in a room at LaGuardia several hours after the incident.
At LaGuardia, "when we got ready to land, we nosedived," Hanna said. "I hit my head against the seat in front of me," she said. "I hit hard."
Emergency crews were seen spraying foam towards the front end of the plane on the tarmac. The Port Authority said the passengers exited the plane by using emergency chutes.
Hanna said she was among the first to get off the plane, and could smell something burning when she got down to the tarmac. The passengers were put on a bus and taken to the terminal, where they were told to make lists of their possessions on the plane in order to get them back.
Port Authority spokeswoman Lisa MacSpadden said those hurt during the landing suffered back and neck injuries.
The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the incident.
Southwest said in a statement that all the passengers and crew had been evacuated from the plane. Airline spokeswoman Whitney Eichinger said the jet had been inspected on July 18.
NTSB spokeswoman Kelly Nantel said the agency "will gather more information on the incident from the FAA and the operator and assess the damage to the airplane. From there, decisions will be made regarding any further investigative activity from the NTSB."
It was the latest in a string of incidents involving Boeing aircraft, which has faced a rash of problems with the recently launched 787 Dreamliner aircraft.
But Scott Hamilton, an aviation analyst with Leeham Co, said the incident had no connection with Boeing's recent 787 woes.
"I would characterise this as just another incident. There are tens of thousands of flights worldwide every day, and things happen," Hamilton said.
Spokesmen for Boeing and United Technologies, a unit of which made the plane's landing gear, said their companies would also investigate.
Earlier this month a Boeing 777 operated by Asiana Airlines crashed in San Francisco. Three people were killed and more than 150 injured.
Boeing's Dreamliner was grounded for three and a half months this year after batteries in the plane emitted smoke and in one case caught fire. Last week, a Japan Airlines 787 returned to Boston's Logan international airport after a mechanical indicator light came on. Earlier this month, a fire broke out in a Dreamliner on the ground at London's Heathrow airport.
Source:http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/23/injured-boeing-laguardia-landing-gear-collapses
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