Alex Rodriguez Aboard Jet Which Skids Off Runway [J. Mark English]

Just two days after Yankee pitcher Cory Lidle perished in a plane accident, Alex Rodriguez was on a small jet which skidded off the runway.

Here is the story from the Times Daily:

A private jet, carrying Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez and six others, overran a runway at Bob Hope Airport on Friday and was brought to a halt by an arresting system.

"I spoke to Alex. He's fine," agent Scott Boras said.None of the seven people aboard were injured, federal officials said.

The Gulfstream G-II carried five passengers and two crew members, the National Transportation Safety Board said in a statement from Washington, D.C.

The twin-engine jet was stopped by the Engineered Materials Arresting System, a 200-foot-long stretch of pavement injected with air bubbles designed to collapse under the weight of an aircraft as large as a Boeing 737 jet traveling as fast as 50 knots, airport spokesman Victor Gill said.

"It came to a pretty quick stop," Gill said.

Damage to the aircraft was minor, the board said.

An NTSB official was sent to investigate the 11:35 a.m. incident. The board planned to retrieve the cockpit voice recorder, gather radar data and evaluate how well the arresting system worked.

The aircraft, registered to a Wilmington, Del., corporation, approached from the west and landed on one of the airport's two runways. The runway was closed and reopened at 3:30 p.m. after the plane was moved, Gill said.

Bob Hope Airport, in the San Fernando Valley north of downtown Los Angeles, is used by seven airlines and private aircraft.

A Southwest Airlines jet skidded off a runway and crashed through a concrete barrier at the airport in 2000, injuring 43 passengers and the captain. The flight from Las Vegas went too fast and descended at a steep angle when it landed, according to a NTSB report. That jet ended up on a city street near a gas station.