(Victor Alcorn)
(
)
It was a bad kind of thrill for the pilots — and no fun at all for their passengers.
A Tampa-bound Southwest Airlines jet skidded off a taxiway into deep mud at MacArthur Airport on Long Island yesterday morning, leading a pilot to report sardonically to air controllers:
“We just made your day very exciting — at least, ours is going to be.
“We just taxied off the taxiway into the grass,” the pilot sheepishly explained, according to audio on the Web site LiveATC.net.
No one was hurt in the 6:30 a.m. incident, which occurred as Flight 4695, carrying 129 passengers, three flight attendants and two pilots, was headed to the runway for takeoff.
As the plane was negotiating a turn from the terminal area to a rain-slicked taxiway next to Runway 6, it veered off course into some muddy grass.
“We are going to have to deplane the people and get something in here to tow the aircraft back onto the pavement,” the pilot radioed.
“We skidded a little bit and it was a little herky-jerky, and the pilot got on and said something like, ‘We overshot the runway,’ ” passenger Michael Savino told WCBS/Channel 2.
“It was bumpy, like we were in a car accident,” said passenger Ben Rizzitello.
The passengers were evacuated via air stairs trucked to the jet, and bused back to the terminal.
Southwest got a spare plane, and everyone took off for Tampa about five hours behind schedule.
Airline crews were still working last night to get the Boeing 737 out of the mud without damaging its landing gear or other parts, said Southwest spokesman Paul Flaningan.
The plane sank so deeply, its engines were nearly touching the ground.
The airline and the Federal Aviation Administration are investigating the accident.
Meanwhile, an American Airlines flight returned to Kennedy Airport Wednesday night after a flight attendant severed a finger when two beverage carts banged together.
Flight 64 to Zurich, Switzerland, was nearing cruising altitude east of Massachusetts when the pilots declared an emergency. They asked for an ambulance to be waiting at the airport.
Reattachment surgery was a success, said American spokesman Matt Miller. “She’s doing well,” he said.
It was unclear what made the carts slam together.
However, the pilots of the Boeing 767 reported that they hit some turbulence shortly after they took off from Kennedy. Radar records show the plane very quickly lost about 100 feet of altitude.
Flight 64 arrived in Zurich about four hours behind schedule.