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Plane Skids Off Runway At New York's LaGuardia; 6 Injured

A Delta jet which skidded off the runway at LaGuardia airport is attended by emergency personnel in New York City, on Thursday.
Reuters/Landov
A Delta jet which skidded off the runway at LaGuardia airport is attended by emergency personnel in New York City, on Thursday.

Updated at 2:15 p.m. ET

A Delta flight carrying 130 passengers and crew skidded off a snow-covered runway at New York's LaGuardia Airport on Thursday, slamming through a fence on the side of the tarmac. Six people were hurt, an official says.

Authorities initially reported no injuries from the accident. Port Authority spokesman Joe Pentangelo later said that six people had been injured, but that none of the injuries was life-threatening.

Flight 1086, an MD-80, was inbound from Atlanta. The incident occurred at about 11:05 a.m. ET, according to NPR's Hansi Lo Wang.

"I felt for sure that we were going into that water. Thankfully, we did not," a passenger who identified himself as Aaron Smith wrote on Twitter, according to Reuters.

Video from local television stations showed passengers exiting over the wing and the aircraft's nose poking through a chain-link fence. Numerous emergency vehicles were also on scene. Photos that emerged later in the afternoon showed the plane apparently only a few feet from the East River.

Port Authority Executive Director, speaking at an afternoon news conference, said that it was too soon to say what caused the accident. He said that "literally minutes before" the incident pilots on other flights landing at LaGuardia reported "good braking action."

The airport initially was expected to remain closed until 7 p.m. ET, but Pentangelo was quoted by Reuters as saying one runway would reopen at 2 p.m. ET.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Scott Neuman is a reporter and editor, working mainly on breaking news for NPR's digital and radio platforms.
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