Close Call for UK’s Blair

A British Airways 747 carrying UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and his family overshot the runway at Miami International Airport yesterday. The Blairs were aboard BA flight 209 with 343 other passengers and crew headed for a vacation. The incident was blamed on poor runway lighting, an increasingly important issue since the crash of a Comair regional jet at Lexington, Ky. There were no injuries in the BA incident. "Apparently they're doing some resurfacing work and relighting, so the lighting was poor. Just to err on the side of caution, the captain decided to stop at the end of the runway and called the tower," said BA Spokesperson John Lampl, adding the pilot stopped the plane at the end of the runway because he could not see the lights to the taxiway. FAA has yet to identify what caused the aircraft to run off the runway and onto the grass. The taxiway lighting met FAA standards, the agency's spokeswoman said.