Two cranes lift the airplane that slid off the runway at T.F. Green Airport Sunday night. The aircraft is being moved to a hangar for investigation.

The Providence Journal Sandor Bodo

WARWICK — US Airways Express Flight 3758 was coming in from Philadelphia on Sunday afternoon, arriving a little early and smoothly cruising overhead as the tail end of a winter storm wound down below.

The plane had been flying through thick clouds at dusk, mist on the windows, readying for the descent into T.F. Green Airport just before 5 p.m. Then the cloud cover broke about 300 feet above ground, and the passengers could see where they were.

The plane was perpendicular to the runway, remembered Brown University Prof. Thom Jones, who watched from his seat in front of the left wing. Sitting a few rows behind him was Richard Clark, 57, of Cranston, who served in the Air Force and has flown private planes. With about 20 seconds left in the air, Clark was surprised to suddenly see the runway so close, so soon.

The plane suddenly plummeted with a boom. “I can’t tell you the force when we hit the ground,” said Jones. “It felt like we were in an elevator and we dropped four floors.”

Some passengers screamed as the plane hit the ground, Jones said. He said the pilot did his best to keep the aircraft on track, but the plane turned, seeming to ride its left wing and belly.

Snow was kicked up over the wings against the windows as the plane skidded off the runway, Clark said. “Several people were saying, ‘This is not good, this is not right.’ ”

The plane veered about 90 degrees off the runway and stopped. The 31 passengers looked at each other in quiet shock, Jones said. He and the others sitting on the left side of the plane were tipped in their seats, still buckled in. No luggage had spilled out. No one said a word. No one was hurt.

The pilot spoke to the steward, who calmly unbuckled himself from his seat and began to check everyone on board, Jones said. Then the pilot spoke to the passengers. He sounded apologetic, Clark said, saying there had been a bad landing and he’d been in contact with emergency responders. Clark could see the fire trucks approaching.

Jones remembered the pilot also saying that they were lucky and should all be grateful, and “we’re going to do everything we can to make you feel safe.”

A West Virginia man sitting in the window seat next to Jones turned to him and said, “Well, we got out of that by a gnat’s [behind].”

SUNDAY’S ACCIDENT was the most serious crash of a commercial flight at T.F. Green Airport in recent memory. The accident closed the 5-23 main runway where the Bombardier-made CRJ200 came to a rest, until 1:30 yesterday afternoon when heavy cranes and equipment were able to gently move the aircraft into a hangar for an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board. Regular flights were using runway 16-34, the crosswinds runway, and the change hadn’t affected any flights yesterday, said a Rhode Island Airport Corporation spokeswoman.

Investigator-in-charge Bill English was on scene as the damaged aircraft was moved into the hangar. The recorders were removed and sent to the NTSB’s lab in Washington, D.C., for review, according to spokeswoman Bridget Serchak. The NTSB requested the maintenance records for the aircraft, which is owned by Air Wisconsin, a regional carrier for US Airways. The plane was manufactured in 2004, according to FAA Registry records.

“We will be cooperating with the [NTSB and the Federal Aviation Administration] to find out every detail we can about what happened,” said Air Wisconsin spokeswoman Barb Jones. She declined comment on the identities and flight records of the pilot, co-pilot and steward aboard the flight.

Just five minutes before the accident, a larger airplane had landed safely on the main runway. The pilot of a Boeing 737 jet reported “braking action good,” according to the NTSB.

The US Airways Express jet had touched down about 1,000 to 1,200 feet from the threshold of the 7,166-foot runway, said Serchak. Although an Air Wisconsin spokeswoman had previously offered the weather as a possible explanation for the crash, the NTSB was not commenting on possible causes for the accident. (The National Weather Service said that cloud cover was 300 feet and visibility was a mile and a half in fog, with 6 mph winds from the north.) The preliminary investigation is expected to take at least two weeks.

The plane’s left main gear had collapsed and the left wing was damaged, Serchak said, but no fuel spilled.

That was the airport firefighters’ worry as they pulled up to the crashed plane, close to the airport fire station. The firefighters worried about fuel leaking and fires — the plane had about 900 gallons on board, said Airport Fire Chief Jack Thomas. They needed to get the passengers out safely.

In about a minute and a half, they’d secured the way to the exit door. Warwick firefighters pulled up and positioned themselves, in case of a fuel spill.

As the firefighters came aboard through the main door and checked each passenger for injuries, Professor Jones could see the emotion in their faces. “They were very compassionate and very shaken up,” Jones said about the firefighters. “They were acting like this was a situation that had great gravity.”

The firefighters were escorting people to ambulances to stay warm, until buses arrived to take them back to the airport. “One woman didn’t want to get off the plane because she was so traumatized,” Jones recalled. The firefighters allowed the other passengers to exit first, and then helped her out, Jones said.

While the airport firefighters train and drill for crashes and other emergencies, this was the most serious accident that their chief could recall.

“It doesn’t happen every day, but you have to be ready for it every day,” Thomas said. “The guys did a great job.”

Outside, Clark saw the left wing resting in the snow. Jones saw a wheel that had been ripped off. He thought about the pilots and steward with appreciation. “We all felt really grateful,” Jones said. “We all got out of this alive.”

mmckinne@projo.com