REPUBLICAN VICE PRESIDENTIAL candidate Mike Pence’s campaign plane slid off a runway during a rainstorm at New York’s LaGuardia Airport late last night.
When the plane came to a stop on a patch of grass, US Secret Service agents rushed from the back of the plane to the front, where Pence was seated, to check on the candidate. He said he was fine, though, and no one had been injured.
“We can see mud on the front windows,” a calm Pence said in the press cabin about a minute after the plane came to rest.
Later, the Indiana governor tweeted:
In Geneva, Ohio, GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump told his supporters that Pence had come “pretty close to grave, grave danger”. But, he added: “I just spoke to Mike Pence and he’s fine. Everybody’s fine.”
Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton tweeted:
The plane was coming to New York from Fort Dodge, Iowa, where it had made a hard landing but stayed on the runway yesterday afternoon.
After a rally in Fort Dodge, Pence’s flight to New York was delayed because of weather. The Indiana governor spent about 20 minutes tossing a football with his staff, reporters and Secret Service agents near the Iowa runway.
Upon arriving at LaGuardia, after a bumpy approach, the Boeing 737 Eastern Airlines charter landed roughly, making first contact with the runway concrete. The pilot slammed on the brakes and the plane began to slide sideways. When it stopped, passengers could smell burning rubber.
The Federal Aviation Administration said: “A crushable concrete runway safety technology called an Engineered Material Arresting System stopped the plane.” The FAA website says the material is “designed to safely stop airplanes that overshoot runways”.
The 37 passengers, including Pence, and 11 crew members were evacuated through the back of the plane.
The Port Authority shut down the runway following the incident, but later reopened it. In a statement the agency confirmed that the plane had “overshot” the runway, there were no injuries and there was no fire.
Port Authority Executive Director Patrick Foye said the National Transportation Safety Board “will take control of the investigation. The aircraft will remain where it is until the NTSB releases it”.
Foye added: “Per the request of the NTSB, we are not going to speculate on the cause of the incident tonight.”
Pence spokesman Marc Lotter said Pence spoke with Trump shortly after the landing. The vice presidential candidate also called into a fundraiser at Trump Tower that he had been expected to attend, Lotter said. The campaign said it was preparing a new, similar aircraft that would be ready soon.
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