Miracle in Guyana: Caribbean Airlines plane crashes, but no fatalities

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Flight 523 from New York had just touched down and passengers were applauding the pilot's landing in the South American country on Saturday when something suddenly went wrong.

The Boeing 737-800 slid off the end of a rainy runway, crashed through a chain-link fence and broke in half just short of a deep ravine. Yet all 163 people on board survived.

Officials were starting to probe the cause of the crash even as they marveled at the lack of fatalities.

"It's an absolute miracle what happened here in Georgetown," CAL's chairman George Nicholas said.

Text: AP

Image: The broken fuselage of a Caribbean Airlines' Boeing 737-800 is seen after it crashed at the end of the runway at Cheddi Jagan International Airport in Timehri, Guyana, Saturday July 30, 2011. (Photographs copyright AP)