On Tuesday, June 21, Red Air McDonnell Douglas MD-82 caught fire after making a crash landing at Miami International Airport. The MD-82 collided with multiple objects before coming to a rest.
The MD-82, with registration HI1064, was operating flight L5203 from Santo Domingo to Miami International when it veered off the runway and skidded into the grass area between the runway and the taxiway.
Red Air flight 203 made an emergency landing at around 5:30 p.m., Tuesday, after attempting to land at the airport and something went wrong, it is possible that it experienced a landing gear collapse during landing.
A communications/radar tower that was standing in its path was taken out by the plane, along with a small building in the area. The tower could be seen wrapped around the right-wing of the plane, where the fire also ignited.
The Fire rescue crews responded to the scene and were able to quickly douse out the fire using foam trucks. The plane was evacuated.
There were 140 people on board the plane and three of them reportedly sustained minor injuries during the evacuation, two of them were taken to a hospital for treatment. Others on board the plane appeared to be in good shape.
It remains unclear if problems with the landing gear happened before or when it landed.
Miami Int’l Runway 09 and 12 are currently closed.
This is a developing story.
Feature Image: via CNN
Very fast evacuation – congratulations to crew.
Does not look like any landing gear is down. The Horizontal tail is sitting square to the ground indicating both left and right center landing gear are not deployed or collapsed. Most likely not deployed / malfunctioned.
Front landing gear definitely not extended.
Very fierce fire from right hand side, may have been one of the impact zones with ground equipment/building. Radome shattered off so that took first hit with some ground object.
People running all over field is a real big problem for emergency vehicles to have to navigate around. Some people ran back toward the aircraft – (oh forgot my bag?)