An Airbus A-300 belonging to American Airlines and destined for Santo Domingo that was about to take off from New York’s Kennedy Airport at 7:30 am on Tuesday, 20 February, was detained at the last minute because of the detection of smoke on the flight deck. The aircraft, most of whose 190 passengers were Dominican, was evacuated and four people were injured while leaving the plane.
Bernardo Then, director of operations of American Airlines in the Dominican Republic, said that three of the injured suffered fractures, while another suffered a slight heart attack. The remaining passengers were put aboard on another aircraft that left New York at 12:30 pm. The news of the aborted flight came less than two weeks after the disaster of the Boeing 757 that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Puerto Plata, in which the 189 on board, mostly German tourists, perished.
1-7 March 1996