American Airlines flight skids off Jackson Hole runway

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SALMON, Idaho | Wed Dec 29, 2010 5:51pm EST

SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - An American Airlines jet arriving from Chicago skidded off the runway and into a snow bank in Jackson Hole, Wyoming late on Wednesday morning, airport officials said.

None of 181 people aboard the aircraft were injured and the plane was not damaged but the accident caused the Jackson Hole Airport to close for two hours, airport director Ray Bishop said.

The plane went nose-first into the snow bank.

Bishop told Reuters weather could not account for the accident, which happened near noon. He said there was light snow falling at the time and visibility was 1.5 miles.

"We had good braking and the runway was in reasonable shape -- not great, but good," he said.

Airport officials used bulldozers and snowplows to dig out the plane and temporarily diverted incoming jets -- including a United Airlines plane from Chicago and American flights from Dallas, Denver and Salt Lake City -- to nearby airports in Idaho and Montana.

Bishop said passengers and crew seemed in good, even festive, spirits despite the mishap, with some transmitting details and images of the accident over their cell phones.

The airport is north of the exclusive resort town of Jackson, known for its world-class skiing and a favored destination of the rich and famous.

Located in Grand Teton National Park in northwest Wyoming, the Jackson Hole Airport is the busiest in the state with 600,000 travelers per year.

(Reporting by Laura Zuckerman; Editing by Dan Whitcomb and Jerry Norton)
Aerospace & Defense
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Comments (4)
pezipolt2 wrote:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTc3bQzQ63U

Dec 29, 2010 7:48pm EST  --  Report as abuse
peteracquaro wrote:
I was on this plane today. The brakes I had heard were the problem. We could smell the burning of tires possibly brakes. The pilot told us that the breaks failed to engage and that the planes electronics stated the plane did not even know it had landed. I don’t know anything about planes but I am pretty sure that means that the electronics were faulty and did not engage the brakes appropriately. The plane was very close to houses and it is my assumption that we went off the runway and were heading toward the back fence and some houses that surround the outside. It seems the pilots evasive action of banking it into a snowbank was very intelligent and may have saved us from a much worse crash.

Dec 29, 2010 10:00pm EST  --  Report as abuse
specwar92727 wrote:
peteracquaro,

You have NO idea what you are talking about. The brakes on an aircraft ar instant when the pilot or co-pilot apply them. The auto-breaking system malfunction has nothing to do with the crews manual controls. Do your research please.

Dec 30, 2010 1:28pm EST  --  Report as abuse
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