Passengers Escape As Plane Bursts into Flames
Posted on: Wednesday, 3 August 2005, 09:00 CDT
HUNDREDS of jet passengers had an amazing escape last night when their aircraft crashed on landing at Toronto.
Early reports indicated everyone on board had survived the fireball on the Air France Airbus A340 from Paris, which landed in a fierce storm.
Passenger Oliver Dubois said: 'We knew there was bad weather with a storm.
'The power went out just before we landed but we thought that was because of the rain. We crashed completely then.
'There was no light in the plane and we could feel the force and it was really, really frightening.
'We were all scared the plane would explode then and tried to get out as quickly as possible.'
The Airbus is believed to have skidded off the runway and down a ravine. The 297 passengers and 12 crew had just minutes to escape before a huge fire swept through the fuselage.
Roel Bramar slid off the plane by the inflatable chute.
He said: 'I was the second one off and everyone was just running like crazy.'
Corey Marks watched the plane crash from the nearby highway 401, one of the busiest roads in Canada.
He said that after the plane came off the runway, it went into the valley, cracked in half and burst into flames. Marks saw fireballs engulf it within seconds.
He said: 'When it came down on to the runway, everything looked good and sounded good.
'He hit the runway nice and then I heard the engines backing up all of a sudden.
'He sailed on through and kept on going.The plane went straight into the valley and cracked in half.It went up into flames.'
Firefighters covered the plane with water and chemical foam to try to douse the flames.
TV pictures showed flames and thick smoke belching from it.
Most flights from Toronto's Pearson International Airport had been grounded at the time because of the storm.
The A340 is said to be one of the safest aircraft flying, with no fatal accidents recorded.
The last major aviation accident in North America was in 2001 when an American Airlines plane lost a section of its tail and crashed in New York killing 265
Source: Daily Record; Glasgow (UK)
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