21 Injured After Boeing 737 Slides Off Runway Into Florida River

A Boeing 737 passenger plane with 143 people aboard slid into the St. John’s River on Friday night, after trying to land during a thunderstorm.

According to CNN, the plane was arriving from Naval Station Guantanamo Bay in Cuba into Naval Air Station Jacksonville. 21 people were taken to the hospital with minor injuries and no fatalities were reported.

The plane was chartered and operated by Miami Air International. Everyone aboard the Boeing 737 had to evacuate via the plane’s wings with the help of firefighters.

One passenger, Cheryl Bormann shared her account of the “crash” with CNN and said she could even smell jet fuel leaking into the river.

“The plane literally hit the ground and bounced – it was clear the pilot did not have total control of the plane, it bounced again,” Bormann said.

“We were in the water. We couldn’t tell where we were, whether it was a river or an ocean. There was lightning and thunder. And we stood on that wing for a significant period of time. Rescue folks came and eventually someone inflated a life raft that had been on the plane and we began climbing into it. Everybody was helping everybody,” she added.

Captain Michael Connor, commanding officer at Naval Air Station Jacksonville, expressed that it was a “miracle” that there had been no serious injuries or fatalities.

This isn’t the first time Boeing has been under fire for flight complications. The aerospace company has already had two fatal crashes involving a different model, the 737 Max 8.