Passengers on board Delta Airlines incoming flight 383 from John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York got the scare of their lives this morning when the aircraft lifted off the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA), Timehri tarmac immediately after a shaky attempt at touching down.
This reporter was on the said flight and experienced, as many others did, the rougher than usual touchdown, which was quickly aborted as the plane powered up and took off again, to loud gasps by the passengers. Those on board included Minister of Education Priya Manickchand. The flight was not fully booked and there were lots of empty seats. The flight was scheduled to arrive at around 6 in the morning but passengers were not able to disembark until about 7.
Minutes before the originally scheduled landing, the captain said that there was turbulence and that he would have been circling for a while until it eased up. However, when he attempted to come in for a landing about twenty minutes later, there was a clear feeling that the aircraft touched down too hard. There was also the sensation that it was moving around more than it should for a normal landing and moments after there was the sensation of liftoff as the plane took to the skies again.
During this time, passengers remained pensively quiet, some of them trying to wrap their head around what had just happened. Then about four or five minutes of the plane being newly airborne, the captain, over the public address system, apologised saying that the autopilot malfunctioned hence the aborted landing.
At the success of the second attempt to land, passengers applauded and breathed a sigh of relief.
As persons filed off the aircraft, the pilots of the aircraft were heard discussing what had happened minutes earlier.
In July 2011, a Caribbean Airlines Boeing 737 overshot the runway at CJIA and came to a stop well beyond the end of the runway, breaking in two in the process and resulting in a number of persons being injured. One man had to have his leg amputated as a result of the accident.
