Washington
CNN
—
The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating after a Frontier Airlines flight made a hard landing at Luis Marin International Airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Tuesday.
Flight 3506, an Airbus A321, was arriving from Orlando International Airport when its first landing attempt failed.
Audio from the website Broadcast includes air traffic controllers alerting pilots of “debris on the runway” after an “aircraft landed a bit harsh.”
“The last aircraft that tried to land in San Juan hit the surface too hard and apparently (it) lost some things in the runway,” the controller explained to another pilot. “He has declared an emergency.”
Flight 3506 circled the airport and made two more attempts at landing, successfully touching down at 10:20 p.m. local time.
A number of other incoming planes had to land at other airports while Luis Marin International was closed.
Video from a passenger on the plane showed people onboard cheering as it finally landed.
“It was truly terrible. To fear for your life and not know what was going to happen, to not know if you were going to land safely or how everything was going to end,” Jeffrey Cerda said in a video he posted to Instagram. “The accidents happen, and we don’t know when or how they’ll happen. They’re accidents and they happen the moment we least expect it.”
Passengers were deplaned on the taxiway and bussed to a terminal.
“The aircraft landed safely and there were no injuries to the passengers or crew,” Frontier Airlines said in a statement. “The incident is under investigation.”
CNN’s Martin Goillandeau, Caroll Alvarado and David Williams contributed to this report
