There’s been an accident at Midway:
A Southwest Airlines flight from Baltimore to Chicago slid off a runway at Midway International Airport and onto a nearby street as it attempted to land amid heavy snow and wind, authorities said Thursday.
Although there were no immediate reports of injuries on the plane, at least one person was seriously hurt in a vehicle on the ground, Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford told WMAQ-TV.
The accident happened about 7:15 p.m. when Southwest Flight 1248 inbound from Baltimore slid off the runway, crashed through the airport’s boundary fence and stopped on part of Central Avenue, according to the Federal Aviation Administration’s regional office in Chicago.
A man who identified himself as an aircraft mechanic at Midway told WBBM-AM that the plane’s nose gear had collapsed, at least one of the engines was damaged and the jet appeared to have been hit by a vehicle.
The plane slid off the runway and out of the airport proper onto a street that adjoins the airport.
Eyewitness reports from the scene say that there are at least ten ambulances there and it’s been said that there was one fatality on the ground. No word on injuries onboard the plane.
Midway is a tiny airport. The runways at Midway are between 3,859 and 6,522 feet long. Compare this with O’Hare’s main runways which are 10,301 and 13,001 feet long respectively. Although Midway’s runways are fine for normal conditions I wonder if the combination of the heavy snow that’s falling here and the short runway just proved too much.
I suspect that this may revive discussions of a third airport.
I tend to doubt it, in light of the major expansion work being done at Orchard.