Domestic flight runs off runway at Bluegrass Airport

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WTVQ) – 77 people on board a Delta Endeavor flight had a bumpy landing coming in Saturday afternoon as the plane overran the runway during a heavy storm.

Bluegrass airport tweeted out a statement from Endeavor Air, saying Delta Connection flight 3359 from Atlanta turned off the active runway after landing and came to a stop in the grassy area.

One of the planes passengers told ABC 36, because the pilot made that decision to slide into the grass, everyone was unharmed and not nose down into a ditch.

“I knew surrounding the runway there was a pretty big ravine that’s there, so I just old her to hold on because I thought that’s where we were heading but we managed to just stop in the grass and bury in the mud.”

The rain was coming down hard at the time, and Elliott and his wife said the pilot circled the airport a few times before landing, but no one has said whether that had anything to do with the slip off.

“It was pouring down rain and when we did stop in the mud and look out the window, there was a lot of water on the runway. It was like a river on the runway, just the water rushing past.”

Passengers took buses to the terminal where they then picked up their luggage.

While an investigation was underway, the airport shutdown.

“Anytime that you have an incident on the airport we have to close the airport out of the abundance of caution for safety reasons. We think that obviously it’s a safe airport, its a safe operation but now we just have to move the airplane.”

Many flights have been either cancelled or postponed.

One woman said she can’t get a flight out of any surrounding airport for the next two days.

“We have to be in Port Canaveral tomorrow morning and we are with a dilemma now. Do we rent a car and drive 15 hours or do we wait for the possibility of this airport to open up again.”

The Bluegrass Airport can’t give an exact time when it will reopen , but they sent out a tweet saying they hope to return to normal operations soon.

Until the airport returns to its normal schedule, you can check the flight schedule here: https://flightstatus.bluegrassairport.com/ied_fids/62_8_1.htm