BREAKING NEWS — An American Airlines plane skidded off the runway and broke in two after landing in Kingston, Jamaica, shortly after 10 p.m. local time Tuesday, according to local news reports.
Airline spokesman Charley Wilson said in a short statement there were no immediate reports of fatalities or injuries.
Wilson said it was almost a full flight. He said the Boeing 737 normally carries 140 passengers plus crew.
Additional details were not available, but passengers at Norman Manley International Airport told local media that Flight 331 had just arrived from Miami in heavy rain when the crash occurred.
The flight apparently originated in Washington, D.C.
An airport official said the plane overshot the runway and persons were being evacuated, with some sent to hospital.
According to The Observer, passengers said American Airlines Flight 331 had just arrived from Miami in pouring rain shortly after 10 p.m. when the plane overshot the runway.
Passenger Natalie Hendricks said the plane broke into three parts, but that there were no fatalities, her brother-in-law John Estrada of Orlando told The Miami Herald.
Hendricks, who was traveling with her husband, Ian, used a borrowed cellphone to tell Estrada that the aircraft's brakes had failed but that she was unharmed.
There were no immediate reports of serious injuries. American Airlines spokesman Charley Wilson said all passengers were off the plane.
CNN.com quoted Omar Lawrence, the airport's operations coordinator, as saying there were 145 passengers and seven crew members aboard.
Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Laura Brown said the plane was a Boeing 737.
Another passenger, Naomi Palmer, told The Observer, ``The plane crashed and broke almost in front of me.'' Palmer was sitting in the eighth row, the newspaper said.
An American Airlines flight carrying 154 people skidded across a Jamaican runway in heavy rain, bouncing across the tarmac and injuring more than 40 people before it stopped just short of the Caribbean Sea, officials and witnesses said.
Panicked passengers screamed and baggage burst from overhead bins as Flight 331 from Miami careened down the runway in the capital, Kingston, on Tuesday night, one passenger said.
The impact cracked open the fuselage, crushed the left landing gear and separated both engines from the Boeing 737-800 ...
