Jet’s skid ends short of icy bay

NEW YORK – A Delta jetliner landing at LaGuardia Airport in a driving snowstorm Thursday skidded off a runway and crashed through a chain-link fence, its nose coming to rest on a berm at the edge of an icy bay.

Six people were hurt in the midday accident, which authorities said came just minutes after the runway had been plowed. It was a near-tragic reminder of what pilots have long known about LaGuardia: Its relatively short runways and waterfront location leave little room for error, especially in bad weather.

Passenger Malcolm Duckett, a marketing executive from Georgia who was seated near the left wing, called the landing “scary” and said he was thankful the plane didn’t end up in Flushing Bay. He said he and other passengers were told they had to exit over the right wing because one of the doors was too close to the water.

“We landed pretty hard. I could see the damage to the wing. It was pretty torn up,” Duckett said. “It was riding across a fence for 10 seconds, and once we landed, we landed in the snow.”

Daniel Wildstein, a passenger on the flight from Atlanta, said the plane careened off the runway for roughly 500 yards, but he praised the pilots for averting tragedy.

“They did a wonderful job,” said Wildstein, 51, of Marietta, Georgia. “Anything short of going into the water is a wonderful job.”

Passengers trudged through the snow in an orderly line after climbing off the plane. Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines Inc. said they were bused to a terminal.

At the time of the crash landing, snow was falling and a northeast wind was blowing at 9 mph, with visibility at a quarter of a mile, the National Weather Service said.

LaGuardia, known for its disconcertingly close proximity to the bay, which swamped the berm during Superstorm Sandy and flooded its two runways, is among the nation’s more congested airports.

It’s also one of the most difficult ones at which to land: Its close proximity to three other busy airports means pilots have to make a series of tight turns to line up with its runways while also going through their normal landing checklists.

The Delta flight was landing on LaGuardia’s main runway, about 7,000 feet long and 150 feet wide. On the right side of the runway are a taxiway and terminals. On the left, where the plane ended up, are the berm and the bay.