Air Canada plane leaves Halifax runway on ‘abrupt’ landing

Fire trucks and an airport shuttle are on the scene at the Halifax International Airport early Sunday March 29, 2015 after an Air Canada flight from Toronto made an abrupt landing and left the runway in bad weather. The airline said early Sunday that 22 people were taken to a hospital for observation and treatment of minor injuries. AP PHOTO/Mike Magnus

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia — An Air Canada plane made an “abrupt” landing and left the runway at the Halifax airport in bad weather, and officials said early Sunday that 25 people were taken to a hospital for observation and treatment of minor injuries.

The airline said a preliminary count showed Flight AC624 from Toronto had 132 passengers and five crew members.

“We are thankful no serious injuries have been reported,” Halifax Stanfield International Airport tweeted. The airport said its airfield remained closed.

Airport spokesman Peter Spurway said the aircraft touched down in stormy conditions.

“It came down pretty hard and then skidded off the runway,” Spurway said. He said he didn’t know whether runway conditions played a role.

The Halifax region is currently under a snowfall warning, with an Environment Canada alert saying, “Visibility may be suddenly reduced at times in heavy snow.”

Power went off at the airport, which meant an emergency response center had to be moved to a nearby hotel, Spurway said.

The cause of the outage was not clear, but Nova Scotia Power said they had since restored service.

Flight tracking service FlightAware showed that the plane is an AirbusA320.

Another flight tracking site, Flightradar24, listed several cancelled flights at the airport Sunday morning.