It has been an extremely windy day here in Austin with gusts surpassing 40 miles per hour this afternoon. These high winds have been wreaking havoc on operations at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (AUS) throughout the day.
Both arrivals and departures have been affected by the high winds, leading to delays for carriers at the airport. These delays were further compounded after high winds forced a private jet off of the runway and into the grass during a failed take-off attempt.
The aircraft, a Bombardier Challenger 300 registered as N283B owned and operated by Elite Air, was attempting to take off for a flight to St. Pete–Clearwater International Airport (PIE) when the incident occurred.
Reddit user Birding_in_Texas, caught the incident on camera earlier today. The private jet appears to have been caught off guard by a gust of wind during its takeoff roll and overcorrected.
The plane came to rest in the grass off to the side of Runway 36R and all passengers appear to have walked away without incident. This incident caused the airport to close to arriving and departing traffic briefly though the western runway, across the airfield from where the incident occurred, has since reopened.
Summary
A private jet veered off of the runway in high winds while attempting to take off from Austin-Bergstrom International Airport earlier this afternoon. This temporarily caused the airfield to close though one runway has since reopened. The Austin area was seeing wind gusts in excess of 50 miles per hour at the time of the incident.