eye in the sky

Here's my take on the Midway accident of 12/8/05:
no one on the plane was injured, but there was at least one death from the airplane leaving the airport onto a busy road.

It's amazing this hasn't happened here before.
Though, Southwest had a similar runway overrun in Burbank, CA ( Flight 1455 march 6 2000)
Chicago Midway airport (click for map) is basically one square mile in the middle of a heavily populated area. You fly close to buildings arriving on any side of the airport and the runways (while of adequate size when it was built over half a century ago,) are very short  for commercial operations today.

As a result of the size of the land, the 'overruns' or 'stopways' (lengths of pavement beyond the runway for a safety margin in stopping) are small or non-existant.  In place of those, a stopping arrester material may/should be installed (similar to  a runaway truck lane you see on mountainous roads), but apparently are not. 
The lack of adequate stopway and/or arresting material was also cited in an Air France accident earlier this year in Torronto, where an A340 also went off the end of the runway in bad weather.

I suspect that the actual runway braking action (good,fair, poor, nil) , which is reported to pilots, was  not as good as it was stated to be,
or
the pilot had added a few extra knots to his approach speed to provide a windshear pad for the bad weather, which  can significantly increase landing distance, and simply did not have enough room to stop on a runway with compromised braking action.
or both.

The airport area had 7 inches of snow, but Aviation Department spokeswoman Wendy Abrams said. runway conditions at the time were "acceptable."
Well, maybe not, Wendy! (BTW "acceptable" is not a term used to describe runway conditions.)

While Abrams was confident runway conditions were not to blame, James Burnett, a former NTSB chairman, said investigators would likely focus on the weather."When you're looking at a runway overrun, it almost always involves a runway condition that's improper," James Burnett, a former NTSB chairman,told WFLD-TV

Background:

CHICAGO - A jetliner trying to land in heavy snow slid off a runway, crashed through a fence and slid into a busy street, hitting one vehicle and pinning another beneath it. A 6-year-old boy was killed.

At least 10 people were injured, authorities said. Eight people of the injured were on the ground. Two passengers on the plane suffered minor injuries, Aviation Department spokeswoman Wendy Abrams said.

Southwest Airlines Flight 1248 from Baltimore was landing at Midway International Airport with 98 passengers and five crew around 7:15 Thursday night when it slid through the fence.

The airport area had 7 inches of snow, but Abrams said runway conditions at the time were acceptable....