KINGSTON, Jamaica, Dec. 25 (UPI) -- Experts say the passengers on a jet that overshot the runway at a Jamaican airport were lucky the plane did not collide with anything.
Andrew Maloney, an aviation lawyer in New York, told The Miami Herald the pilots appear to have been able to slow the plane down enough to keep it out of the ocean and away from a road near the Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston. The plane was just short of the water when it came to a halt Tuesday evening.
American Airlines Flight 331 took off from Miami at 8:52 p.m. Tuesday and came down at 10:22 p.m. in a heavy rainstorm. While the plane split in two, none of the 154 passengers and six crew members on the plane were killed and only 13 were admitted to hospitals with injuries.
"If you don't get a post-crash explosion or fire you've got a good shot at surviving something like this,'' Maloney said Wednesday.
Gary Mouttet of Coral Gables told the Herald the flight was a rough one. He said he could tell as the pilot approached the runway he was coming in too high.
