While there were reportedly no serious injuries, an aircraft with 140 people onboard skidded off the runway and caught fire on Tuesday while landing at Miami Airport.
RED Air MD-82 has serious landing incident in Miami
On Tuesday, June 21, 2022, RED Air flight L5-203 was operating from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic (SDQ) to Miami, USA (MIA). The flight was operated by a roughly 32 year old MD-82 with the registration code HI1064 (interestingly the plane operated for American Airlines for 26 of those years, before the airline retired the aircraft type).
The two hour, 848-mile flight operated as scheduled, until it was time to land in Miami at around 5:45PM. After touching down on Runway 9, the plane veered off the runway and into the grass area. The aircraft hit several objects, before eventually coming to a stop and catching fire.
At this point passengers evacuated, and fortunately there were only a few minor injuries. It’s reported that there were 130 passengers and 10 crew members (10 crew members?!?!?!).
There’s even video footage of the evacuation from inside the cabin, and as usual many people tried to leave with their bags, putting others at risk.
The NTSB is now investigating this incident.
What is RED Air, anyway?
As an aviation geek, one of my favorite things about living in Miami is the variety of airlines we get. Even as someone who is constantly using flight tracking software, I’m amazed by how often I see flights by airlines I don’t know much about (both cargo and passenger services).
For those not familiar with RED Air, it’s a low cost Dominican airline startup. The airline started operations in late 2021, and it’s a joint venture between Venezuela’s LASER Airlines and the Dominican Republic’s SERVAIR Domenica.
The airline currently flies exclusively between Santa Domingo and Miami, generally operating two daily flights. RED Air has a fleet of a few MD-80 family aircraft (well, with one jet having been fully written off, I guess the fleet is now a bit smaller).
Not that having to write off a plane is ever a pleasant thing to do, but I imagine this is especially bad for a startup airline, especially in terms of reputation.
Bottom line
A RED Air MD-82 had a major incident while landing at Miami Airport on Tuesday. The jet veered off the runway, hit several objects, and caught fire. While the aircraft has to be written off, fortunately there were no major injuries, which is a testament to how well planes are built, and how well crews are trained at evacuating passengers.
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