Why do airlines cancel flights due to weather? Delta flight 1086 is an example of why. The plane, which originated from Atlanta, skidded off the runway in New York's Laguardia Airport last Thursday morning. There was no loss of life, but all that could have changed in a split-second, because the plane was inches away from crashing into the water, which could have resulted in a tremendous loss of life. There were a few injuries, but none of them are life threatening. There were 132 people on the plane (Including crew members) including New York Giants tight end Larry Donnell.
The runway had reportedly not been treated, but Air Traffic Control still gave the Delta flight clearance to land. Some people say that freezing fog caused this crash. freezing fog is basically when there is fog in an area where the temperature is below freezing, in this situation whatever the fog hits will freeze on contact. It can hit a tree, a road, anything, and that thing will freeze. In this situation it was a runway.
All runways at Laguardia were closed after the crash Thursday, however, one runway was opened at 2:00 PM.
What's interesting is that in October, the same type of plane, operated by the same airline had an incident on the same runway, but different from what happened on thursday.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) along with other agencies are looking into the accident.