A flight attendant was injured after a Spirit Airlines flight from Fort Lauderdale was hit by gunfire as it came into land at Port-au-Prince in Haiti on Monday morning in a dramatic incident that forced airlines to quickly divert and cancel flights to the crime-ridden city.
Spirit Airlines flight NK-951 departed Fort Lauderdale at around 9:10 am on November 11 for what was meant to be a routine two-hour flight to the Caribbean island of Hispaniola.
As the Airbus A320 aircraft was on final approach to the Haitian capital, it was sprayed with bullets, which pierced through the fuselage, hitting overhead lockers towards the rear of the single-aisle aircraft.
Thankfully, none of the passengers were injured but a spokesperson for Spirit confirms that one of the flight attendants did sustain minor injuries with some reports suggesting that they were grazed by a bullet.
The aircraft quickly diverted to Santiago in the neighboring Dominican Republic, where the airline said a post-flight inspection “revealed evidence of damage to the aircraft consistent with gunfire.”
“One Flight Attendant on board reported minor injuries and is being evaluated by medical personnel. No Guest injuries were reported,” an emailed statement from the airline continued.
“The plane has been taken out of service, and we are arranging for a different aircraft to return our Guests and crew to FLL today.”
Due to civil unrest in Haiti, Spirit Airlines is one of only a few US airlines that still operate in the country, although Spirit says it has now suspended all flights to Port-au-Prince (PAP) and Cap-Haitien until it “evaluates” the situation further.
Both American Airlines and JetBlue also immediately suspended flights to Haiti in the aftermath of Monday’s incident.
An Air Caraibes flight, which had just flown nearly ten hours from Paris, was also forced to divert to the Dominican Republic following Monday’s incident.
In November 2022, a packed passenger plane operated by Middle Eastern Airlines was hit by a stray bullet that pierced a hole in the main passenger cabin and penetrated an overhead locker as it was coming to land at Beirut Airport in Lebanon.
In that incident, however, officials came to the conclusion that the 11-year-old passenger plane wasn’t deliberately targeted, and the airport was not under attack.
With terrorism and crime ruled out as likely reasons for the bullet strike, it’s widely believed that it was simply a reckless or careless discharge of a high-caliber firearm in an area surrounding the airport.
Local reporters point out that celebratory shooting into the air is commonplace across Lebanon, especially at weddings and funerals, and that this is the most likely source of the gunfire.
In fact, the chairman of MEA Mohamad El-Hout says that 7-8 planes parked around Beirut Airport are struck by stray bullets each year. This is, however, the first time that an airborne plane has been hit.
