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A Boeing airliner with 143 people aboard the American outpost at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has slipped off a landing strip in a shallow river in Jacksonville, Fla. on Friday while he was trying to land on a military base during a thunderstorm, injuring 21 people.
No deaths or critical injuries have been reported. The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office reported on Twitter that the 21 wounded had been taken to a hospital where they were listed in good condition.
On the plane, a chartered Boeing 737-800 arriving from the naval resort of Guantanamo Bay in Cuba with 136 passengers and seven crew members, crashed into the St. Johns River at the end of the runway at Jacksonville aerodrome around 9:40 pm local time, said a spokeswoman for Florida Air Base.
"The plane was not submerged, everyone is alive and found," the sheriff's office said on Twitter.
The sheriff's tweet was accompanied by two photographs showing the aircraft bearing the Miami Air International logo, resting in shallow waters and perfectly intact.
Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry said on Twitter that US President Donald Trump had called to offer help.
"No deaths reported, we are all in the same boat," Curry said in a separate tweet.
Lawyer Cheryl Bormann, a passenger aboard the plane, said in an interview with CNN that the plane, which had been delayed for four hours, had made a "landing really". difficult "in Jacksonville in the midst of thunder and lightning.
"We went down, the plane literally hit the ground and bounced in. It was clear that the pilot did not have total control, he bounced back again," she said. adding that the experience was "terrifying".
Bormann stated that she had bumped her head against a plastic tray on the seat in front of her when the aircraft veered to the side and moved off the runway. "We were in the water, we could not tell where we were, whether it was a river or an ocean."
The military base is located on the west bank of the St. Johns River, about 13 km south of central Jacksonville, in northeastern Florida, about 350 km north of Miami.
Bormann described the aircraft 's exit on the wing as oxygen masks were deployed and smelled of jet fuel, which she said was flowing in the water.
Bormann, from Chicago, said that most of the passengers were connected to the army and that they helped each other to get to a wing where they were assisted after a while in a raft.
Miami Air International is a charter company operating a fleet of Boeing 737-800 aircraft, different from the 737 MAX 8 aircraft which was grounded following two fatalities. Airline representatives could not be contacted by Reuters immediately on Friday night.
The military has contracted with the army for its twice-weekly rotator shuttle service between the American continent and Guantanamo Bay, said Bill Dougherty, spokesman for the Jacksonville base.
He flies every Tuesday and Friday from Norfolk Naval Station in Virginia to Jacksonville Air Base and to Cuba. He then returns to Virginia with a stop in Jacksonville, he said.
The rotation service usually includes military personnel, family members, contractors and other civilians traveling from the United States to Guantanamo Bay. But officials said the mix of civilians and military in the plane that crashed was not immediately known.
A spokeswoman for Boeing said the company was aware of the incident and was collecting information.
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