8 hurt after Southwest plane slides off runway at Nashville airport

Nashville, TN — More than 100 people were on board a Southwest Airlines flight when the plane rolled off the taxiway.

The incident happened after the plane came in and landed safely around 5:20 p.m. Tuesday.

Southwest Flight 31 from Houston took a wide turn on the taxiway and slid into a gully, according to sources.

"Then the aircraft just goes everywhere, shaking," said Taylor Kennedy, a passenger on the plane. "We don't know what's going on. And all we hear is, 'heads down, stay down, heads down, stay down.' ... Over and over again."

The airline said 133 passengers and five crew members were on board at the time of the landing.

"We landed and we were taxiing in and all of a sudden, there was just a big boom and it sounded like, to me, that a wheel blew out, but I don't know if a wheel blew out or if it just collapsed or something like that, and the next thing I know, we were in the ditch and they evacuated us," said passenger Kim Mahaney.

Passengers and crews were evacuated from the jet using the emergency slides and shoots and were bussed to the terminal.

"The flight attendants told us just to put our heads down and they opened up the shoots and they told us to evacuate and everybody very calmly around us said, 'Get off the plane as quickly as you can,' and we all evacuated and they got us off the grass and the plane was in the ditch, basically," Mahaney said.

Nashville fire officials said eight passengers were transported to nearby Summit Medical Center with minor injuries, which were mostly bumps and bruises. One person who was injured reported experiencing chest pain.

Four passengers have since been evaluated and released, according to Southwest Airlines.

"It was actually very scary and it was almost surreal and everybody on the plane was very calm," Mahaney said.

The airline said this was the final destination for the majority of the passengers. The remaining passengers were taken to hotels or taken to their final destination on a different plane.

Crews have removed the checked and carry-on luggage from the plane and are working to reunite passengers with their items.

The aircraft was towed back to the terminal overnight.