3 hospitalized after commercial plane landing gear collapsed at Miami International Airport
By Joe Sutton, Jamiel Lynch and Gregory Wallace, CNN
Three people were hospitalized with minor injuries Tuesday after the landing gear of a Red Air flight from the Dominican Republic collapsed as it landed at the Miami International Airport, spokesman Greg Chin told CNN.
The flight was arriving from Santo Domingo at 5:30 p.m. when the gear collapsed and caused a fire.
Chin said 126 passengers were on board the plane. Three people were taken to a hospital with minor injuries, he said.
Dominican Republic-based airline Red Air said in a statement there were 130 passengers and 10 crew members on the aircraft. It’s unclear why there’s a discrepancy in the number of people who were on the plane.
When fire crews arrived on scene, they saw the wing of the aircraft was on fire, said Erika Benitez, a spokesperson for Miami-Dade Fire and Rescue.
Crews used specialized foam trucks and conducted a primary search to ensure all passengers were off the aircraft.
Crews also worked to mitigate fuel spillage, Miami-Dade Fire and Rescue said.
The airline said the plane “had technical difficulties after landing at the Miami International Airport (MIA),” but did not provide further details about the incident.
“At RED Air we express our absolute solidarity with the passengers and crew of the aircraft,” the company said in the statement.
The National Transportation Safety Board said the aircraft was a McDonnell Douglas MD-82, and it will send a team of investigators to the incident site Wednesday. The Dominican Civil Aviation Institute is also investigating and working with Miami authorities, Red Air said.
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CNN’s Abel Alvarado contributed to this report.
