Sitting in the A-West lounge, just watched what I think was a US A319 bounce twice on takeoff from 27L, then have front gear collapse at high speed. Can't see where it stopped but smoke from the west end of 27L. Will update as I see more.
Update 6:28pm, listening to tower in LiveATC.net ... aircraft evacuating, emergency vehicles en route, people walking around near aircraft.
Update 6:30pm - emergency vehicles told to take care due to # of people walking around, probably thinking of the Asiana SFO incident where someone was run over. All PHL departures and arrivals halted airport at "alert 2" status per tower.
Update 6:40pm - no more smoke from the area of where the aircraft likely stopped. I'm still shaking and I was only watching from afar. Will type up my recollection shortly. No pics and can't see where it wound up from the west end of the A-West lounge. Hope everyone's getting out OK, would have been some pretty strong G-forces from what I saw.
Update 6:50pm - tower reports A320 aircraft involved.
Here's what I saw ... at approx 6:26 pm or so, I was in the US Airways Club in Terminal A-West over gate A15, able to see roughly the eastern half of runway 27L. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a plane get 30-50 ft in the air, then come down and bounce on the runway, then be airborne for another 2-3 seconds, then land with more weight towards the front landing gear. Front gear collapsed, sparks on the runway, it then skid out of my line of sight. Light white smoke visible for about 7-10 min afterwards. Winds are still pretty strong here, but I doubt that was the primary cause. Weather otherwise clear and sunny here.
Update 6:53pm - airport on alert 1 status, should reopen runways 27R and 35.
Update 6:56pm - steady number of ambulances still passing the terminals west towards the accident site. No idea on injuries.
Update 7:05pm - thanks to one of my coworkers via Twitter, this is report is encouraging:
https://www.facebook.com/DennisFee/p...?stream_ref=10 I still do not know which flight # it was.