Miami plane crash: New web cam video emerges as pregnant woman among seven hurt
At least seven people were injured after crash
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A pregnant woman was reportedly among the seven passengers injured when a pane carrying 126 people caught fire when its landing gear collapsed on the runway at Miami International Airport.
The flight from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, crashed onto the tarmac at around 5.30pm on Tuesday, coming to a stop near the runway.
Miami-Dade aviation department spokesperson Greg Chin said three people were taken to hospital for treatment for minor injuries, while the remaining passengers were bussed from the site of the accident to the terminal. In total, seven passengers were reported injured – including a pregnant woman, airline RED Air later confirmed to local news outlets.
Lauding the pilot for ensuring that the aircraft “stopped in a position so rescue equipments can access the airplane”, aviation expert Scott Harrington told CBS News it was a miracle that more people were not hurt.
Meanwhile, investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board have started a probe into the incident, as they attempt to determine what caused the landing gear to collapse.
Miami-Dade County mayor arrives at the scene
Miami-Dade County mayor Daniella Levine Cava was briefed by fire and rescue services personnel after she arrived at the scene of the crash.
“Apparently a tire burst, and then it went back up and came back down, and the landing was so hard that the entire landing apparatus was destroyed and the belly of the plane is on the ground,” Ms Cava told media as she confirmed that three people were injured in the crash.
It’s a miracle more people were not hurt in crash, says aviation expert
Weighing in on the crash at Miami International Airport, aviation expert Scott Harrington told CBS News that it is a miracle that more people were not hurt in the plane crash.
“Absolutely, it seemed like... again I’m not exactly sure of the specifics of this flight... but it seemed like the pilots did a good job to keep it all in one piece. To get it stopped so the plane could be stopped in a position so rescue equipment can access the airplane,” he said.
Pilots are trained to be calm in such situations, he added.
“We are just hyper focused. Our brain goes into flight mode. We are focused on the problem, focused on taking care of the solution as much as we can. Sometimes if a mechanical part breaks, there’s really not a whole lot we can do.”
Brother provides update on injured passenger: 'It was crazy'
Edgar Rincon, the brother of one of the passengers, provided updates on his sister, who suffered a minor injury following the crash.
“She was very nervous. She got hit in the knee. It’s not broken, but she got an injury in the knee,” he told CBS News, adding that while she was hurt, she did not have to go to the hospital.
“She said it was crazy running out of it, running out of the aircraft, she lost her shoes and everything, and everyone was crazy there.”
ICYMI: Video shows terrified passengers fleeing after the crash
Passengers screamed and fled from the scene of a flaming plane crash at the Miami International Airport, video shows.
Just before 5.40pm on Tuesday, a Red Air flight arriving from the Dominican Republic had a landing gear failure upon arrival, sending a jet with 126 people sliding across runway nine at MIA.
The craft quickly caught fire, sending passengers running from the grounded jet, which was inbound from Santo Domingo.Some were filmed hustling away from the wreck, while others stopped to film the crash with their phones.
Many were seen hauling away luggage from the burning plane as emergency crews arrived.
Josh Marcus reports the details:
Red Air: A new airline heralded as tourism sector boost
Red Air, the airline whose flight crashed on Tuesday, is based in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. It has been conducting flights since late 2021.
The company began by flying charter flights between the Dominican Republic and Miami, and has authorisation for flights to Tampa, Florida; San José, Costa Rica; Medellín and Cartagena, Colombia; Panama; and Caracas, Venezuela.
Leaders in the Dominican Republic had celebrated the launch of the airline.
“With these flights, the country benefits from greater interconnection with the rest of the world. And of course, the tourism sector benefits directly, which is in its best moment, even surpassing pre-pandemic numbers,” president Luis Abinader said in December.
Flights at the Miami International Airport are running on schedule
After Miami International Airport closed two of its four runways following the 6pm crash on Tuesday of RED Air Flight 203 onto its runway, flights are now running on schedule, according to the airport’s spokesperson, Greg Chin.
Initially, the south Florida airport warned that there would be temporary delays, but according to the latest updates on their arrivals and departures website, flights inbound and outbound are landing and taking off on time.
Passenger onboard the crashed flight describes ‘frightening’ scene
A passenger who was onboard RED Air Flight 203 when it crashed at the Miami International Airport described a “frightening” scene to local news outlet the Miami Herald.
“People were very frightened,” said Mauricio Davis, who was returning from Venezuela and grabbed a connecting flight in Santo Domingo to Miami.
“People were grabbing the seats to keep from spinning around,” he added, noting that when the 126 passengers travelling onboard realised there was fire, they collectively began screaming with panic.
Read more from the Miami Herald here.
RED Air mechanic describes ‘shocking’ landing
A 36-year-old mechanic from RED Air interviewed by the Miami Herald provided his first impressions about the landing of the plane on Tuesday night, which he describes as being a “hard landing”.
Hector Dejesus, employed by the airline and a former Dominican military aviation mechanic, first told a reporter from the Florida-based outlet that he thought perhaps there was a pilot error in the landing.
“I suppose it was a hard landing. We do maintenance all the time. I suppose it was that,” he told the Miami Herald. “I’m in shock. I would see things like this in the air force.”
An investigation into the crash is being handled by the National Transportation Safety Board, who told reporters they’d be sending a team of investigators to the incident site on Wednesday.
What is the McDonnell Douglas MD-80, the airliner that crashed in Miami on Tuesday?
On Tuesday at approximately 6pm, a McDonnell Douglas MD-80 that had taken off from the Dominican Republic, the home base for the recently founded airlines RED Air, caught fire when its landing gear collapsed on the runway at Miami International Airport.
The McDonnell Douglas MD-80 is a mid-size, medium-range jet airliner and is manufactured by McDonnell Douglas. Since taking off in 1979, it has been used by dozens of airlines from around the world, with major customers including Delta Air Lines, Spirit Airlines, American Airlines, Alaska Airlines and Swissair.
American Airlines was the first major US carrier of the airliner and began by leasing 20 of the 142-seat aircraft from McDonnell Douglas in 1982. In the early 2000s, the airline announced that it would retire all of its MD-80s and replace them with the more fuel efficient Boeing 737-800s. The final American Airlines MD-80 flight flew on 4 September 2019.
As of May 2022, there were 148 MD-80 series aircrafts in service, with operators including USA Jet Airlines, who has a total of 18 of the airliners, and Canadian Airways Congo, who has two of the jets in service, among a number of other carriers with smaller fleets.
According to the Aviation Safety Network, the database has documented 88 occurences of accidents involving the McDonnell Douglas MD-80 since 1979, with 1,446 fatalities.
Watch: Red Air Flight 203 passenger shares footage of his escape
One of the passengers travelling on board Red Air Flight 203 from Santo Domingo to Miami on Tuesday night filmed the terrifying moments before he and other passengers made an emergency exit down the plane’s evacuation slide.
Paolo Delgado, who shared his cellphone footage with CBS Austin’s John-Carlos Estrada, can be seen fleeing the grounded plane while passengers ahead and behind him are heard hurriedly trying to get off the smoking airliner in a safe but rushed manner.
As Mr Delgado descends the emergency slide, a plume of black smoke can be seen wafting from the plane that he has just seconds ago escaped from.
Watch the full clip below:
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