Boeing 737 Slides Off Runway Into River in Florida

A passenger says the plane hit the ground "and bounced"

A Boeing 737 slid off a runway in Jacksonville, Florida. (Photo by U.S. Navy via Getty Images)
A Boeing 737 slid off a runway in Jacksonville, Florida. (Photo by U.S. Navy via Getty Images)
Getty Images

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A Boeing 737 with 143 people aboard landed in a shallow river in Jacksonville, Florida, on Friday, after skidding off a runway while trying to land at a military base during a thunderstorm, reports Reuters. Twenty-one people ended up in the hospital with minor injuries.

The chartered jetliner, operated by Miami Air International, had flown from Naval Station Guantanamo Bay in Cuba with 136 passengers and seven crew members, and crashed into the St. Johns river at the end of the runway at Naval Air Station Jacksonville at around 9:40 pm.

Attorney Cheryl Bormann, a passenger on the plane, told CNN that the flight, which had been delayed four hours before taking off, made a “really hard landing” in Jacksonville amid the story, Reuters reports. “We came down, the plane literally hit the ground and bounced. It was clear the pilot did not have control of the plane.”

“The plane was not submerged. Every person is alive and accounted for,” the local sheriff’s office tweeted. According to Reuters, Lenny Curry, the mayor of Jacksonville, tweeted that Donald Trump had called him to offer help.

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