40 91 passengers injured in American Airlines accident at NMIA

Forty Ninety One passengers were reported injured when an American Airlines plane crashed and broke in two after landing at the Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston shortly after 10:00 last night.

“The injured passengers have been taken to the Kingston Public Hospital,” Information Minister Daryl Vaz told the Observer. “There are no reports of fatalities.”

Vaz, Transport and Works Minister Mike Henry and National Security Minister Dwight Nelson were quick on the scene and engaged in a head count from the passenger manifest to determine if anyone was missing.

American Airline Flight AA331

Flight AA331, a Boeing 737-800, had just arrived from Miami in pouring rain with 148 passengers and a crew of six when the accident occurred.

“The plane crashed and broke almost in front of me,” said a shaken Naomi Palmer who was in seat number D8.

Palmer said she was feeling some pain and was being supported by a friend on the outside of the arrival area when she spoke with the Observer.

The plane overran the runway, smashed through the perimeter fence, crossed the Port Royal road and ended up on the beach.

Another passenger, Verona Hall, said, “The plane landed and people started clapping. We saw the lights of Kingston. Then all of a sudden we didn’t see the lights anymore. I looked through the window and I saw white lines, so I felt I was on the tarmac, but it was actually a rough touchdown. The plane broke and we began to smell fuel.”

Hall said the flight was actually late leaving Miami as airport authorities offloaded all the luggage in order to remove one suitcase from the cargo hold.

Niko Hurley, who was traveling from San Francisco and connected in Miami, told the Observer that the lights in the plane went out, the overhead bin opened and luggage fell onto his head.

“We smelt fuel and realized that some people were injured and we began to help them out of the plane because we weren’t sure if there was a bomb or something,” he said.

His mother, Bambi Fowles, who was on her way to pick up her son, cried as she told the Observer that she heard about the accident when she got to the Harbour View roundabout and saw that it was blocked by police.

“I begged and begged the policeman to let me through,” she said, her voice cracking. “I’m just so relieved because I feared the worst.”

People at the arrival area of the airport waiting to pick up their friends or loved ones first got a hint that something was wrong when they saw passengers emerging from the Customs hall bloodied and shaken.

Some of the injured passengers were placed under a permanent tent outside the arrival hall and were seen nursing their wounds with towels and shirts.

One young woman who was apparently there to pick up someone, started filming the activities under the tent but was accosted by police who carted her off to the Airport Police Station.

The absence of any medical personnel to tend to the injured passengers angered a woman who gave her name as Heather Robinson. “I wasn’t on the plane, but I was here to witness the most embarrassing scene,” she said. “It is a shame that as a country our airport is not ready to deal with a crisis.”

Verona Hall was also angry at the authorities. She said that after the plane stopped, the passengers were made to wait for what seemed like half-an-hour before help arrived.

“This is an embarrassment that there was no emergency plan at this airport,” she fumed.

Airport officials were not available for comment last night. However, it is expected that the crash will be investigated by aviation officials today.

Last night, American Airlines issued a statement saying that it is in direct contact with officials from the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration and is co-operating fully with appropriate authorities.

“American Airlines will not speculate as to possible causes of the incident. At this point, no additional details can be confirmed,” the airline said.

adopted from the Jamaica Observer Newspaper

NEGRIL, Westmoreland — IN an effort to stem the rampant squatting in this resort town, the housing ministry recently signed contractual agreements for the development of 800 lots at Whitehall Phase Two.

The venture is projected to cost the Government just under $300 million.

“Once we start those lots we can give perhaps to people who are maybe currently seeking informal solutions, and they can in fact buy into this programme,” said Housing Minister Dr Horace Chang. However, Chang was not prepared to divulge just how much the lots would cost.

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TRUCKEE, California (AP) – Some might say he’s Usain Bolt on skis. Not surprisingly, though, when Errol Kerr tells people he’s a member of the Jamaican Winter Olympic team, most pull out the bobsled one-liners.

“When people hear of a Jamaican skier, they expect dreads hanging out the back of my helmet and a smoke stream following me down the mountain,” Kerr said. This is no joke, though.

Less than two years since Bolt brought world records and world renown to the island nation with his sprinting, Jamaica’s latest winter star is hoping to put his country on the map in the new Olympic sport of skicross. “It’s more than just a country,” Kerr said. “It’s in my blood, in my DNA.”

In this photo taken on December 14, 2009, skier Errol Kerr, who will represent Jamaica in the Vancouver Olympics,

Born to an American mother and a Jamaican father, Kerr grew up a dual citizen between Lake Tahoe in California, where he moved with his mother as a child, and Westmoreland, Jamaica’s westernmost parish.

He has felt most at home on the slopes since he was a kid watching a ski race on TV.

He rolls with the jokes, most of which inevitably draw comparisons to the Jamaica bobsled team, a fan favourite in the 1988 Winter Olympic Games in Calgary that inspired the comedy movie “Cool Runnings”.

In fact, one of Kerr’s sponsors is a beverage company called Cool Runnings.

“There’s no running away from it,” Kerr said of the bobsled team. “I embrace it. They laid the groundwork.”

But while the bobsled team was initially a novelty, Kerr enters the Vancouver Olympics — his first — as a serious contender.

The hybrid style of skicross draws on Kerr’s extensive background in Alpine skiing. It also makes good use of the rougher edge he picked up in motocross and BMX, and the 200-plus pounds (90-plus kilogrammes) he has to throw around, said American Jonny Moseley, an Olympic gold medallist who will be a TV commentator for the freestyle events — moguls, aerials and skicross — in Vancouver.

“Errol’s got a good shot at the Olympics,” Moseley said. “He’s cut out for the sport.”

Kerr’s background helps in an event that is rowdier than Alpine ski racing, where one athlete races against the clock. In skicross, four competitors speed down a steep, winding course together, taking on banked turns, berms and each other along the way. The first one across the finish line wins.

“It’s very pure, very simple that way,” said Moseley. “But there’s a lot of contact, a lot of strategy and jockeying.”

To viewers, it is dynamic, and anyone who has raced friends down a mountain can relate to the scramble. Snowboardcross drew big crowds and good ratings when it made its Olympic debut at the 2006 Turin Games. Adding skicross will continue to draw younger athletes and fans, said Joseph Fitzgerald, the International Ski Federation’s freestyle race director.

“You watch it on TV and it pops, there’s so much activity,” said Fitzgerald, speaking from San Candido, Italy, site of the skicross World Cup.

Kerr is taking nothing for granted. He spends his days training at Alpine Meadows, a resort at Lake Tahoe that has sponsored him, and in his mother’s front yard, where he built a starting gate with the same specifications as the one in Vancouver and rigged up his own snowmaking machine.

His mother, Catherine Kerr, once a ski racer herself, stands behind the practice gate, counting down: “Racers ready… attention… ”

She lets the gate fly. Errol Kerr springs out, strides. He plants his poles once, and crouches for the first tabletop jump, staying tight and close to the ground. Another stride, another jump. Then he circles back, and goes through it all again… and again… and again, shaving off the precious fractions of a second that could land him ahead of the pack in Vancouver.

Errol Kerr’s late father never strapped on a pair of skis, Errol’s mother said. It would have moved him to see how far his son has come, and to know that he is competing for the island, she said. Kerr said part of his dream was always to race for his father’s country — under the black, green and yellow flag of Jamaica.

“To be able to see Errol grab a hold of that and say, ‘let’s take it a step further, put Jamaica on the map of skiing’, it’s beautiful,” she said. “He would just be so proud.”

MONTEGO BAY, St James — The police have arrested one person in relation to Thursday’s recovery of three guns and more than 200 rounds of ammunition at the AJAS Cargo Warehouse at the Sangster International Airport.

According to the police, the ammunition and guns — a Haskell .45 semi- automatic pistol, a Model 995 rifle, and an Intratec 9mm luger semi automatic pistol — were found by a team from the Trans National Crime and Narcotics Division, the Canine Division and police from the Sangster International Airport, along with members from the Contraband Enforcement Team.

The team, acting on a tip from the Customs Department about the presence of “a suspicious piece of cargo — had gone to search the warehouse.

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Deejay Busy Signal’s one drop rendition of American singer Phil Collins song One More Night, has been raising eyebrows with what persons believe is the use of the word ‘Gary’ in the song.

However, the artiste’s management is adamant that the word is not ‘Gary’ but ‘Baby’. For a number of weeks persons have been speculating on air and on the Internet over the word they believe is ‘Gary’ in the song’s chorus. On www.youtube.com a number of persons have also been making comments on the song.

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Despite being absent from the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate’s Court yesterday, a man accused of stealing a cellular phone was sentenced to nine months at hard labour.

Corporate Area resident Steve Wright, charged with larceny as a servant, also had a warrant issued for his arrest.

According to the allegations, the accused man stole a blackberry phone from his employer. Wright, who apparently appeared before the court already and promised to return the instrument, failed to deliver it to the complainant and did not return to court for sentencing.

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Usain Bolt’s handlers have denied that the Jamaican mega sprint star has confirmed his participation at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in India next October.

In a quick response to the Games’ chief organiser’s announcement that Bolt will compete at the October 3-14 event, the Olympic champion’s handlers said his appearance is not yet certain.

Bolt’s management team has not ruled out his appearance for the New Delhi event, but declared the double sprint world record holder was yet to make a final decision on his plans.

Bolt’s manager Ricky Simms said a decision should be made by next summer.

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Recently I was on the Streets of Savanna-la-Mar in Jamaica and I noticed that most of the students I passed wore a Gaza Button. I decided to chat with a few of these students and some of the things I heard from them regarding the Gully/Gaza feud were appalling. But what is worst is when I was told that there are also buttons of Mavado (Gully God) and Lisa Hype in porn pictures (separately of course).

I think it’s a shame what some of us as adults do for the sake of MAKING MONEY.

What kind of messages are we sending to our young people when we as adults stoop so low to make and sell emblems to them, especially of artistes who are feuding lyrically? Knowing full well that this situation is causing division among our young people, who constantly fight (physically sometimes) in an effort to show their support for their favorite artiste/s.

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FROME, Westmoreland — The 2009/2010 sugar crop at the Frome Estate here got off the ground Friday against the background of mounting optimism that the sugar-processing plant will produce at least 6,000 tonnes more of sugar than the previous crop.

Operations manager at the state-run facility Victor Wright said the management of the estate is confident that some 43,000 tonnes of the sweetener will be produced during the four month-long crop.

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