Runway reopened after plane slides in Utah
Dec 20, 2013, 12:26 AM
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) – Flights were disrupted at Salt Lake City International Airport on Thursday after a cargo plane slid on a taxiway made slick by a winter storm.
One runway was reopened 2 1/2 hours after the airport shut down flight operations.
Nearly 30 departures were canceled and 14 incoming flights were diverted to other Utah airports during the shutdown, said airport spokesman Barbara Gann.
The Boeing 757 cargo plane landed safely before the slide, said Allen Kenitzer, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration.
Nobody was injured and the cargo plane was not damaged, he said.
Gann called the slide a minor incident and said the airport was quickly forced to halt operations for all flights because of the slippery conditions.
The airport in Salt Lake had received more than 3 inches of snow by midmorning after a freezing rain. Several more inches of snow were expected Thursday, the National Weather Service said.
Delta, the airport’s major carrier, could not immediately specify how many of its flights were affected by the temporary closure.
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