This one was even better
44 Unhurt as Jet Lands at Abandoned Strip
AP
Published: May 25, 1988
LEAD: A Boeing 737 jetliner making an approach to New Orleans in bad weather lost power in both engines today and made an emergency landing near an abandoned World War II airstrip six miles short of the airport.
A Boeing 737 jetliner making an approach to New Orleans in bad weather lost power in both engines today and made an emergency landing near an abandoned World War II airstrip six miles short of the airport.
The Taca International Airlines plane was on its way from San Salvador and had made a stop at Belize. All 36 passengers and 9 crew members fled unharmed from the plane to a nearby levee as a driving rainstorm started.
Peter Messina, an official of the American-owned airline, which is based in El Salvador, said that the cause of the engine trouble was unknown and that the apparently undamaged aircraft was only three weeks old.
It landed on a narrow strip of grass, wings barely fitting between a drainage canal on one side and a levee on the other. Witnesses said the plane was close to but not on the landing strip.
Praise for Pilot
Passengers, shaken but uninjured, praised the skill of the pilot, identified as Carlos Dardano of El Salvador, about 35 years old.
''We went through rain and severe turbulence and I thought I heard them say lightning hit the plane,'' a passenger, July Mora of New Orleans, said. Officials later could not confirm that lightning had struck the jet.
The pilot radioed shortly after noon that he had lost power in both engines, said Paul Bourg, a supervisor at the control tower at New Orleans International Airport.
The pilot was being directed to Lakefront Airport, but about five miles from that airport, he said that he could not make it.
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