US: American Airlines mishandled plane data

WASHINGTON — US federal officials investigating an incident in which an American Airlines jet went off the end of a runway say the airline improperly downloaded information from the plane's flight recorder before turning it over to the government.

The National Transportation Safety Board called the download a violation of its standards, and barred American Airlines from further participation in the inquiry into Wednesday's incident at Wyoming's Jackson Hole Airport.

A Boeing 757 carrying 181 passengers and crew members landed on a runway and came to rest in hard-packed snow about 350 feet beyond the runway overrun area, the NTSB said. No one aboard Flight 2253 from Chicago was injured, and the plane was not damaged.

The NTSB said on Friday that it learned that the plane's digital flight data recorder was flown to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where American Airlines technicians downloaded information from the instrument before turning it over to the agency in Washington, the evening after the runway incident. American Airlines did not access the plane's cockpit voice recorder, the NTSB said.