Passengers onboard Westjet Flight 588 got a more eventful landing than they initially planned for when their plane skidded off the runway at Montreal's Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport earlier this afternoon.
The flight, which had originated in Toronto, landed in rainy conditions in Montreal but there's been no report as to if that was the cause of the incident. The airline said in a statement, "The aircraft will be removed from service for full inspection, and WestJet will work with the Transportation Safety Board of Canada to investigate this incident."
Flight #WS588, Toronto to Montreal, exited the runway onto the grass upon arrival. All guests and crew reported safe. More to follow.— WestJet (@WestJet) June 5, 2015
Greg Brown, a passenger onboard the Boeing 737, told the CBC that, "near the end of the landing, all of a sudden you could feel the plane — we hit like a fog patch. We couldn't see anything out the window and I'm guessing [the pilot] couldn't see anything... We came to a stop, looked out the window and we were in the grass."
All is good. #WS588 pic.twitter.com/kznHyLXoMe— Marc-Andre Roy (@roy_marcandre) June 5, 2015
No kidding extraction was needed! #nice job! #efficient extract! pic.twitter.com/4iMfNzNxrY— MaggieDP (@RocknMom) June 5, 2015
The incident is the latest in a spate of runway skids in recent months. In early March, a plane skidded off a runway at LaGuardia Airport in New York City. Later that month, 25 people were injured when an Air Canada flight skidded in Halifax. And over a dozen people were hurt in April when a similar incident happened to an Asiana Airlines plane in Hiroshima.