Snow on the runway of the Halifax Stanfield International Airport in Nova Scotia could have possibly affected an Air Canada plane that had a hard landing and came off the runway early Sunday.

CNN reports that the air carrier initially reported no major injuries from the incident and all passengers were able to disembark from the Airbus A320 jet. However, Air Canada later tweeted that 22 people were brought to the hospital for observation and treatment of minor injuries.

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According to the Mirror, the accident left some passengers with bloody faces that required hospital treatment.

Peter Spurway, spokesman of the airport, added that the jet was damaged as a result of the hard landing. The plane, Air Canada Flight 624, departed from Toronto late Saturday bound for Halifax. It had 132 passengers and five crew.

Air Canada, however, said it was a hard landing, while some of the passengers insist it was a crash. Some of them called relatives waiting to pick them up that they feared for their lives.

On the other hand, the passengers who were not injured complained of being left outside the damaged jet in freezing condition for about an hour before assistance arrived.

Spurway said that while the runway has heavy snow, it was still not clear if the snowy condition played a role in the accident.

Besides the plane accident, the airport also suffered a power interruption partly on the same night. A CBC reporter had tweeted that the Halifax gateway was pitch black with only the exit lights on, while snow was blowing. However, according to Nova Scotia Power, it restored electricity to the airport on the same night.

Mirror said the plane may possibly have hit a power line during its "hard landing", which explains why a power interruption followed the incident.

Tagsair canada, Halifax, Halifax airport, Flight 624, Nova Scotia, crash landing