An aircraft with 21 people on board crashed in a field near a Houston-area airport on Tuesday, officials said, as video footage showed the plane engulfed in flames.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) told local media that the plane—a McDonnell Douglas MD-87—rolled through a fence and caught on fire while trying to depart the Houston Executive Airport. The plane never took flight.
All 21 people on board evacuated safely. Several reports of injuries surfaced, officials said.
“Anytime you have [a] plane that doesn’t make a landing on the runway like it’s supposed to, we’re always expecting the worst and hoping for the best and today, we absolutely, positively got the best outcome we could hope for,” said Tim Gibson, with the Waller-Harris Emergency Service District 200.
Waller County Judge Trey Duhon stated: “The information we have at this time indicates that the plane did not attain altitude at the end of the runway and went across Morton Road, coming to a rest in the field just north of the airport, where it caught on fire,” according to a Facebook post.
“At this time, numerous first responders are on scene and the plane is on fire and burning off jet fuel. That is the extent of information we have at this time,” he added.
Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman Sgt. Stephen Woodard said that one person suffered back pain and the other reported respiratory problems, CNN reported.
“This is a good day. This is actually a day of celebration for a lot of people,” Woodard said.
Utility company CenterPoint Energy said on social media that an outage impacting about 1,800 customers near the scene of the crash was reported.
