Plane skids off JFK runway; no one hurt

NEW YORK -- A Turkish Airlines flight skidded off a runway at John F. Kennedy International Airport Sunday night, but none of the 198 passengers was injured, a regional transportation spokesman said.

The airport was closed for much of the day as a record-breaking snowstorm hit the region. Turkish Airlines flight 1 was among a few running late Sunday, said Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

The plane slid off the runway as it arrived from Turkey at 9:20 p.m., Coleman said.

It was unclear whether the weather was responsible for the incident, said Jim Peters, a New York spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration.

"The weather will be considered, and we'll talk to the crew," he said. "The surface of the runway is one of the things that we'll look at."

The weather made it difficult for crews to tow the Airbus 340 plane off the runway following the skid, he said. Passengers were taken off the aircraft more than an hour after the incident.

A call to a New York number for Turkish Airlines was not immediately returned Sunday.

All three of the region's major airports had been closed earlier in the day after a record storm blanketed the city in more than two feet of snow. Tens of thousands of air travelers were stranded.

By Sunday evening, both Kennedy and Newark had reopened with limited service, though Delta and other airlines opted to cancel all flights until Monday.