Spirit Airlines plane hit by gunfire in Haiti and forced to divert
A Spirit Airlines flight attempting to land in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, was shot at Monday and forced to divert, marking a sharp escalation in the violence that has gripped the nation.
Flight 951, which took off from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, for Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince, was diverted to Santiago, in the Dominican Republic, where an inspection revealed what looked like bullet holes, according to Tommy Fletcher, a spokesperson for the airline.
The flight landed safely at 11:30 a.m. Two other flights bound for Port-au-Prince were then also diverted, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
”An inspection revealed evidence of damage to the aircraft consistent with gunfire,” Fletcher said in a statement. “One flight attendant on board reported minor injuries and is being evaluated by medical personnel.”
No passengers were hurt, the airline said. Spirit suspended flights to Port-au-Prince and to the northern Haitian city Cap-Haïtien. The plane was taken out of service.
The gunfire appeared to come from the ground, though it was unclear who fired the shots. Gangs that have inflicted a campaign of violence in Haiti are also known to be active in the area around the airport in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital.
Videos circulating on social media showed the interior of a plane with what appeared to be several bullet holes, including in an overhead compartment and a panel. The New York Times was not immediately able to verify the videos.
Flight monitoring websites showed a JetBlue plane turning around and heading away from Haiti, as the Port-au-Prince airport was quickly shut down. JetBlue and American Airlines canceled flights to and from Haiti until Thursday afternoon.
Officials at Haiti’s aviation authority did not return calls seeking more information.
“We could hear ‘clack, clack, clack’ — the metal inside the plane and the plastic just cracking,” a passenger onboard, Jean-David Desrouleaux, told The Miami Herald. “A few of us understood what was happening.”
The attack on the Spirit plane comes a day after Haiti’s interim prime minister, Garry Conille, was fired by the country’s transition presidential council — a board of nine people that is leading Haiti until elections can be held to select a president.
Conille was hired in late May to help restore order in Haiti, where a coalition of gangs united this year and wreaked havoc on the capital.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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