No penalty for American in jet crash so far

DALLAS — Federal officials said Tuesday that they're continuing their investigation of an American Airlines jet that slid off a runway in Jackson Hole, Wyo., but the airline won't immediately face any additional penalties for improperly copying data from the jet's flight recorder.

American Airlines took the plane's digital flight data recorder to Tulsa, Okla., where technicians downloaded the information before turning the device over to investigators as required by federal standards.

Federal officials said they couldn't recall an airline ever doing that in more than 40 years. They barred American from taking part in the investigation, but the airline won't face further sanctions.

"American assured us this won't happen again, and we've been satisfied with that," National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Peter Knudson said Tuesday. "That's the extent of our ability to act on this."

American didn't respond immediately to requests for comment.

Last Wednesday, an American Airlines Boeing 757 carrying 181 passengers and crew members stopped in hard-packed snow about 350 feet past the runway-overrun area at Wyoming's Jackson Hole Airport, according to the NTSB.

American said last week that there were no injuries and the plane was not damaged, and that technicians didn't alter data on the flight recorder or the cockpit voice recorder.

American is a unit of Texas-based AMR Corp.