There were some tense moments at the region's largest airport Monday night after a plane slid off the runway during landing.
That one incident led to thousands of passengers being grounded.
The scene at Halifax Stanfield International Airport on Tuesday was a far cry from what Monday night when an Air Canada plane slid after landing on the runway.
The plane swung around 180 degrees and for passengers, it was a landing they won't soon forget.
“The landing started really smooth,” said Jonathan Butt. “Touchdown got really close to the end of the runway and the back of the plane, you could start to feel it slide around. We did a 180 slide. We ended up facing completely the opposite side of the runway.”
Another passenger, Jessica Butt, said: “It was full tilt the whole runway. There was no slow down. It was the most eventful landing we've ever had.”
Valerie Patriquin said Air Canada staff were great throughout the ordeal, but still said “it was a little scary.”
No injuries were reported. But there were delays as the airport shut down its runways for two hours.
“The end position of the aircraft was just on the edge of the runway, so not at the end but the edge,” said airport spokeswoman Tiffany Chase. “If you think about the shoulder of the road, there's a shoulder piece to our actual runway and the nose wheel of (the plane) would have been on the shoulder of the runway.”
Bob Stevenson was one of the delayed travelers.
“It's just a setback. There's nothing we can do about it,” he said. “You can complain all you want but somehow or another, whoever controls the weather just doesn't listen.”
It was a rapidly developing scenario for airport authorities who say they tried to provide information as quickly as they could.
“For a period of about two hours here at the airport, there were no flights coming in or out as a result of both the aircraft that was on one of our runways, and in general the conditions of the weather system that we saw here (Monday),” Chase said. “We were able to reopen the other runway at about 8:30 p.m. and all flights were able to resume at that time.”
Air Canada says the aircraft is in a hangar near the airport and it won’t be back in service until it’s checked out.
As for the investigation, the Transportation Safety Board says they will be analyzing flight recorders as they piece together what happened last night.
Officials with the Halifax Stanfield International Airport say operations were back to normal Tuesday, with the exception of the odd weather-related delay.
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Natasha Pace.
