Boeing 737 Cargo Plane Overshoots Runway In Southern France

A Boeing 737 freighter operated by West Atlantic overshot the runway at Montpellier–Mediterranee Airport in Southern France and finished nose-down in a lake early Saturday. 

Social media is a buzz this morning about the incident that has closed Montpellier Airport, on the Mediterranean coast, until further notice. A flood of images was tweeted by users showing the freighter in the water. Here are some of them: 

Aircraft flight tracking website Flightradar24 shows the plane’s ground speed at the time of the landing. There was noticeable slowing, but it failed to come to a complete stop at the end of the runway. 

Flight safety consulting firm JACDEC said, “the aircraft landed on runway 12L (length 2600 m) at excessive speed in darkness (0250L) and under adverse weather conditions.” 

JACDEC pointed out that the West Atlantic plane was a Boeing 737-300F built in 1993. 

Local authorities told AP three people were aboard the plane during the mishap — none one of them sustained injuries.

Rescuers pulled three people out of the Boeing 737 They were unharmed in the accident which took place before dawn today
The West Atlantic plane had travelled from Paris Charles de Gaulle to Montpellier in the early hours today#Rescuers #people #Boeing #accident #place #dawn pic.twitter.com/6ey8qaSgdk

— Shahryar Sultan (@Shahryar_Sultan) September 24, 2022

There was no official word on the cause of the crash, but excessive speed and weather could be factors.