Probe begins after Boeing 737 slides off runway into Florida river

Federal investigators on Saturday began searching for what caused a Boeing jetliner with 143 people on board to slide off a runway into a shallow river while landing at a Jacksonville, Florida, military base during a thunderstorm, injuring 22 people. The Boeing 737-800 chartered by the US military was arriving from Naval Station Guantanamo Bay in Cuba with 136 passengers and seven crew members when it slid into the St. Johns River at the end of the 9,000-foot runway at Naval Air Station Jacksonville on Friday night, authorities said. Officials raised the count of people injured to 22, from 21, after a three-month-old child was admitted to a local hospital for observation, said Capt. Michael Connor, commanding officer at the Jacksonville station. NTSB investigators have recovered an undamaged flight data recorder and it has been sent to Washington for analysis, NTSB Vice Chairman Bruce Landsberg said at the news conference. “We expect to get a very full report on that shortly,” he said. Investigators said they are hoping to interview the crew on Sunday. The cockpit voice recorder is in the tail of the plane and submerged underwater. Investigators will not be able to recover it until the aircraft is lifted out of the water, Landsberg said.<br/>