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LaGuardia Back Online After Southwest Accident

The Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 that made an emergency landing at New York's La Guardia airport on Monday after its front landing gear collapsed.
Carlo Allegri
/
Reuters /Landov
The Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 that made an emergency landing at New York's La Guardia airport on Monday after its front landing gear collapsed.

Flights due to arrive at New York City's LaGuardia Airport were experiencing delays that averaged 1 hour and 27 minutes as Tuesday dawned, the Federal Aviation Administration says.

But the issue was weather-related, traffic controllers said, not the aftermath of Monday afternoon's accident, in which a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 arriving from Nashville skidded down a runway after its front landing gear collapsed.

Fortunately, of the 150 people said to be on board the plane only 10 suffered injuries that required medical attention, CBS Local New York reports. Of those 10, "six were hospitalized, four of them for anxiety attacks. ... Four refused hospitalization."

Passenger Anastasia Elliot told CNN that the landing was "pretty chaotic. ... We hit the ground pretty hard and slid. ... There was a lot of smoke filling the plane, just a lot of smoke and burnt rubber."

"Everything in the plane that was loose went flying forward," passenger Bill Roland said, also to CNN. "There were cell phones, iPads, books (and) drinks all skidded up."

The investigation into what caused the landing gear to collapse continues.

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Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.
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