NATION AND WORLD
University Daily Kansan, February 29, 1984
Page 11
United Press International
NEW YORK — A Scandinavian Airlines DC-10 sits in Jamaica Bay after skidding off a rain-slick runway at Kennedy International Airport. At least eight of the 177 passengers suffered minor injuries in the accident yesterday.
Jet skids, noses into N.Y. bay
By United Press International
NEW YORK — A Scandinavian Airlines DC-10 jet with 177 people aboard skidded off a rain-slicked runway upon landing at Kennedy International Airport yesterday and nosed into the waters of Jamaica Bay. At least eight people suffered minor injuries.
Airport fire department personnel helped rescue the 163 passengers and 14 crew members who were forced to slide down emergency chutes or walk out of the tail exit of the crippled plane and onto the fog-shrouded edge of Jamaica
"I could see mud flying and I could hear the screech of the engines as the pilot tried to stop the plane. The next thing I knew we were in the water," said Donna Davison of Newport Beach, Calif.
"The crew screamed,'Emergency! Get out, get out!'" another passenger said. "No one panicked. It was a really good group."
Tom Young, a spokesman for the Port Authority, which operates the airport, said some of the passengers exited from emergency chutes into flotation rafts while others simply jumped into the water from the plane.
"Only the nose of the airplane went into the water," an FAA official said. Port Authority police said the craft straddled the shoreline, with the front landing gear
submerged in about 10 feet of water and the tail resting on land.
Officials said only the left wing tip and the nose assembly of the Scandinavian Airline System plane were damaged.
Other passengers said that all aboard the craft exited in an orderly fashion and listened to crew who ordered them to leave all their belongings behind and leave as fast as possible.
One passenger, however, complained that Port Authority police did not have boats prepared for such an emergency landing and said some passengers sat in rescue rafts on the living water for up to 20 minutes before being pulled ashore.
The FAA said it could not speculate on whether the rain or pilot miscalculation was to blame for the plane skidding, but one passenger, Brennan Jones of New York, said it seemed that the "pilot overshot the runway."
The Port Authority said the injured passengers were treated at the airport medical facility. The other passengers
The FAA said the jet, Flight 901, had flown in from Stockholm via Oslo, Norway, and "hydroplained" off runway 4-R during a fierce winter storm that packed wind gusts of up to 15 m/s. The jumped more than an inch of rain on the metropolitan area.
Heavy fog that reduced visibility to one sixteenth of a mile was reported in the area at the time of the landing.
Bill would delay credit surcharges
amendment to make the ban permanent.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate made plans yesterday to offer at least temporary protection to credit card users to keep them from paying an extra charge on their purchases.
A bill ready for debate in the Senate would extend until May 15 a law banning merchants from imposing a tax on credit cards. The ban expired Monday.
By United Press International
Any action taken by the Senate will need to be reconciled with the House, which has voted to extend the ban on credit card surcharges through July 31.
A temporary extension would give Congress time to resolve squabbling over whether the ban, in place since 1976, is good for consumers or should be dropped because it penalizes cash-
paying customers by forcing them to subsidize the costs of processing credit
Senate Republican leader Howard Baker of Tennessee scheduled debate on both a temporary extension of the ban and a proposal by the Senate banking committee to permanently drop the ban and allow merchants to charge up to 5 percent extra on purchases made by credit card.
However, aides said Sen. Allonge D'Amato, R.N.Y., would counter any proposal to drop the ban with his own
"Today, middle-class people, working people, are totally dependent upon that credit card," D-Amate said in an early-morning interview on NBC's "Today" program. "They have no other choice, and now to say we're going to charge you 5 percent more and not get any service whatsoever, it is certainly going to cost the consumers of this nation $10 billion more."
Others, however, including the Consumer Federation of America, argue that consumers, especially lower-income Americans who more often pay with cash, are being hurt by the ban on credit card surcharges.
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