8 Hurt After Plane Rolls Off Nashville Runway

Officials say a plane has rolled off a runway at Nashville International Airport, injuring eight people. A Southwest Airlines spokeswoman said in an email Tuesday night that Flight 31 from Houston Hobby Airport to Nashville went off the taxiway around 5:20pm as it approached the arrival gate. She said the 133 passengers and five crew members evacuated the plane safely and were bused to the airport, where employees were helping them. A Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman says the Boeing 737 rolled into grass and got stuck while taxiing to the gate. She says the FAA is investigating.

A fire department spokesman says eight people were transported to a hospital, most with minor injuries and one with chest pain. No information about what caused the aircraft to leave the runway was immediately available. "We landed, we were coasting and then we were bouncing up and down and the next thing you know ... it felt as if we were about to topple over as we were going into the ditch," a passenger tells the Tennessean. "You could feel the plane hit and stop. It was terrifying." He says fellow passengers helped flight attendants get elderly and disabled passengers off the plane first. (More Southwest Airlines stories.)