Pilots landing a Delta jet at Port Columbus Airport needed every bit of the Ohio runway and more Friday morning.
Charleston WSAZ-TV reporter Brooks Jarosz was on the plane with a friend, having taken the red-eye from Los Angeles.
Jarosz said the plane encountered wind and rain on the approach, and when the captain hit the runway at a top speed, he wasn’t able to stop the plane until it reached grass at the end of runway.
A few minutes later, Jarosz said the passengers heard from the captain. “He told us he went off the runway a little bit. He was coming in too fast and he ran out of a place to go,” Jarosz said.
The plane took a sharp left turn at the end of the runway and sunk into the soggy field.
Jarosz said the plane smashed through the end of runway lights.
“After those lights there’s a little more pavement and we used every bit of that pavement and some of the grass before we actually came to a stop,” he said.
The passengers were evacuated in groups of 12 while a haz-mat team performed a safety check of the plane.
Jarosz said he didn’t see any injuries.
“We knew there was something wrong but it wasn’t until after we were stopped that everyone kind of knew that maybe we went too far here,” he said.
(Photo: nbc4i.com)