Boy killed as Boeing 737 skids off runway

Federal authorities yesterday launched an urgent investigation into a fatal aircraft accident in Chicago, when a Boeing 737 skidded off a runway in heavy snow, crashing through a perimeter fence onto a nearby street and killing six-year-old boy travelling in a passing car.

The focus of the probe is likely to be whether it was safe to land at Midway airport at the moment when the Southwest Airlines plane touched down at 7.15pm on Thursday in thick swirling snow.

The flight was two hours late, and had circled for 30 minutes above the airport waiting for conditions to improve.

The landing seemed normal at first, Larry Vazzano, one of the passengers, said.

"But we weren't able to decelerate as normal. That's when I realised something was wrong. I saw snow rush over the wing, then there was a big bump."

Finally, the 737 ground to a halt, its front landing gear collapsed and its nose partly crushed, with one badly damaged engine resting directly on the ground.

Only three of the plane's 103 passengers were hurt.

But the people travelling in two cars on Centre Avenue bordering the airport were not so fortunate.

Eight of them were injured, including the boy's parents.

Their son was pronounced dead on arrival at a local hospital.

"That was the toughest part," Mr Abate told a local TV station.

"We were safe on the plane, but the toughest part was when we saw that someone was under the belly of the plane."

The crash was the first ever accident involving a fatality for Southwest, the pioneering budget carrier whose profitability has been a conspicuous exception to the crisis gripping most of the airline industry.

Though Midway was re-opened yesterday to restricted traffic, the white Boeing jet remained where it had come to rest the previous evening, its lowered white front section protruding onto the street.

One factor may have been the shortness of the runway at Midway.

Jets like the 737 need a minimum of 4,900 feet to come to a halt.

The Midway runway was only only 6,500 feet long, allowing a relatively small margin for overshoot.

"We've been afraid something like this would happen," a local resident said.

But the crucial factor, according to experts, was the weather, and whether the runway was properly ploughed before the plane landed.

"The key will be just how much snow fell on the runway, because that determines braking action," Greg Feith, a former investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board, said.

The accident occurred exactly 33 years after a crash at Midway that killed 45 people, two of them on the ground.

In that crash, the pilot was trying to land when his plane struck tree branches and the roofs of several houses before smashing into one of them and bursting into flames.

Five years ago, another Southwest plane was involved in a similar incident at Burbank airport north east of Los Angeles.

It overshot the runway ended up on a local road, coming to a halt just a few yards in front of a petrol station.

No-one was killed, though two passengers were badly injured.

- INDEPENDENT