A Boeing jetliner with 143 people aboard from the US outpost at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, slid off a runway into a shallow river in Jacksonville, Florida, on Friday while attempting to land at a military base there during a thunderstorm, injuring 21 people.
There were no reports of fatalities or critical injuries. The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office said on Twitter that all 21 of the injured were taken to a hospital, where they were listed in good condition.
The plane, a chartered Boeing 737-800 arriving from Naval Station Guantanamo Bay in Cuba with 136 passengers and seven crew members, crashed into the St Johns river at the end of the runway at Naval Air Station Jacksonville at about 9:40 pm local time, a spokesman for the Florida air base said.
“The plane was not submerged. Every person is alive and accounted for,” the sheriff’s office said on Twitter.
The sheriff’s tweet was accompanied by two photographs showing the plane, bearing the logo of Miami Air International, resting in shallow water and fully intact.
The mayor of Jacksonville, Lenny Curry, said on Twitter that US President Donald Trump had called him to offer help. “No fatalities reported. We are all in this together,” Curry said in a separate tweet.
THE military base is situated on the western bank of the St Johns River about 8 miles south of central Jacksonville, in the northeastern corner of Florida about 350 miles north of Miami.
Miami Air International is a charter airline operating a fleet of the Boeing 737-800, different from the 737 MAX 8 aircraft that has been grounded following two fatal crashes involving that plane.
The charter company is contracted by the military for its twice-weekly “rotator” roundtrip service between the US mainland and Guantanamo Bay, said Bill Dougherty, a spokesman for the Jacksonville base.
It flies every Tuesday and Friday from the Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia to the Jacksonville air station and on to Cuba. It then flies back to Virginia with a stop again at Jacksonville, he said.
The rotator service typically flies military personnel, family members, contractors and other civilians traveling from the United States to Guantanamo Bay. But officials said the mix of civilians and military personnel on the plane that crash-landed was not immediately known.
