[1] Factors contributing to the crash include the speed of the aircraft upon landing and the plane touching down more than 4,000 feet (1,200 m) from the threshold of the runway.

[5] At 22:22 local time (03:22, 23 December UTC), the Boeing 737-823 skidded during landing on runway 12 and overran the pavement, sustaining serious damage.

[8] Some passengers indicated cabin service was suspended several times during the flight, before being canceled outright due to turbulence; others report the jet may have landed long on the runway.

[10] Jamaican officials downplayed the role of the malfunctioning lights in the crash, noting that aircrews had been notified and that the actual runway was properly lit.

Its momentum carried it through the perimeter fence at freeway speeds,[13] and across Norman Manley Highway before finally coming to rest upright, within meters of Kingston's outer harbor and the open Caribbean Sea.

[1] Although the airport was closed after the accident, delaying about 400 travellers, it later re-opened with a reduced runway length available due to the tail section wreckage.

[17] Later reports showed the crew had contacted Jamaica Air Traffic Control to request the Instrument Landing System (ILS) approach for Runway 12, the designated runway broadcast by the Automatic Terminal Information Service (ATIS) for arrivals that night.

"[18] Jamaican Director General of Civil Aviation Col. Oscar Derby, stated in the week following the accident, that the jet touched down about halfway down the 8,910-foot (2,720 m) runway.

[23] On December 7, 2011, the NTSB issued a safety recommendation based on the results of its investigation into the crash of Flight 331.

[21] The NTSB recommended that the FAA take actions to ensure adequate pilot training in simulator training programs on tailwind approaches and landings, particularly on wet or contaminated runways, and revise its advisories on runway overrun prevention to include a discussion of risks associated with tailwind landings.

[2] The pilots' failure to abort the landing and climb to go around has been compared to the later fatal crash of Asiana Airlines Flight 214.

[24] In the Asiana Airlines incident, the pilot failed to abort the landing and initiate a "go-around" until it was too late to prevent the crash.