By Frances Robles and David C. Adams
A Spirit Airlines flight attempting to land in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, was shot at Monday and forced to divert, marking a sharp escalation in the violence that has gripped the nation.
Flight 951, which took off from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, for Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince, was struck several times and landed in Santiago, in the Dominican Republic, according to Tommy Fletcher, a spokesperson for the airline.
“An inspection revealed evidence of damage to the aircraft consistent with gunfire,” Fletcher said in a statement. “One flight attendant on board reported minor injuries and is being evaluated by medical personnel.”
No passengers were hurt, the airline said. Spirit suspended flights to Port-au-Prince and to the northern Haitian city Cap-Haïtien. The plane was taken out of service.
The gunfire appeared to come from the ground, though it was unclear who fired the shots. Gangs that have inflicted a campaign of violence in Haiti are also known to be active in the area around the airport in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital.
Flight monitoring websites showed a JetBlue plane turning around and heading away from Haiti, as the Port-au-Prince airport was quickly shut down. JetBlue and American Airlines canceled flights to and from Haiti until Thursday afternoon. A JetBlue spokesperson said the airline would monitor the situation to determine whether any more flights needed to be called off.
Officials at Haiti’s aviation authority did not return calls seeking more information.
The episode marks the second time in as many months when an aircraft in Haiti has been hit by gunfire. A United Nations helicopter with three crew members and 15 passengers on board was shot at late last month and hit several times as it flew over a gang-controlled neighborhood in the capital.
In recent weeks, social media has been filled with photographs of a U.S. armored vehicle sent to Haiti to help quell the violence engulfed in flames, reportedly set ablaze by a gang. Gangs fired on two U.S. Embassy vehicles traveling in Port-au-Prince last month.
The attack on the Spirit plane came a day after Haiti’s interim prime minister was fired by the country’s transition presidential council — a board of nine people that is ruling Haiti until elections can be held to select a president (see related story on page 10).
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