FedEx plane crash lands at Chattanooga Airport

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF) – Dramatic scenes unfolded overnight at the Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport.

FedEx flight 1376 ended up skidding down the runway shortly before midnight Thursday.

They had taken off from Chattanooga just an hour and a half before on a flight back to FedEx’s World Hub in Memphis but didn’t make it far.

The FedEx plane that crash landed at the Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport late Wednesday night.

In communications between the plane and air traffic control, the FedEx pilot said, “It looks like we’re coming back to Chattanooga. We’re going to need a little bit here to run some extended vectors and run through checklists.”

That pilot later stated, “Yes sir, when we land we’re going to have to stop on the runway, we’re not going to have any steering available to us… But just to give you a heads up we’ll be shutting down the runway so, in the case we are going to declare an emergency at this time.”

A flyby over the airport confirmed their worst fears and led to the decision to crash land.

An air traffic control operator told the FedEx crew, “Both power and the ground crews said there did not appear to be landing gear, no landing gear appeared.”

For much of the day, this FedEx plane sat at the end of Runway 2-0 at the Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport.

From a nearby fenced off area, it does appear that the heaviest damage to the plane appears to be the left turbine with a large crack in the middle.

Somehow, all three of the Fedex crew according to the Chattanooga Fire Department escaped uninjured.

The main runway at the Chattanooga Airport was shut down for most of Thursday morning, but has since reopened.