• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

All Air France Passengers Survive Crash in Toronto, Only Minor Injuries

Posted on: Tuesday, 2 August 2005, 21:00 CDT

TORONTO (CP) - More than 300 people, some stumbling to a nearby highway to flag down passing commuters, escaped with their lives Tuesday after an Air France passenger jet skidded off a runway at Pearson International Airport, slid into a wooded ravine and burst into flames during a fierce thunderstorm.

Only 43 of the 297 passengers and 12 crew members aboard Air France Flight 358 from Paris sustained mostly minor injuries in the dramatic crash, which took place shortly after 4 p.m., authorities said.

"We are very, very satisfied that there were no fatalities and no major injuries," said Steve Shaw, a spokesman for the Greater Toronto Airport Authority, which manages the international airport.

Most passengers, including one of the co-pilots, escaped the wreckage in the moments after the crash and climbed out of Etobicoke Creek ravine and on to the shoulder of Canada's busiest highway, said Peel police Sgt. Glyn Griffiths.

"We located the co-pilot on Highway 401," Griffiths said.

Everyone on board the A-340 jet, which is capable of carrying 350 passengers, was able to get off the plane before it caught fire. It was the first crash for an A-340 in 13 years of commercial service.

"The passengers were able to clear the aircraft before the fire broke out, but that's an unconfirmed report," Shaw said at details began to emerge.

Several area hospitals were on high alert as they prepared for an onslaught of injuries. One nine-month-old baby was taken to Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, but there was no word on the state of the baby's injuries.

At about 8:30 p.m. passengers wrapped in red blankets were taken to an airport hotel and reunited with their families. Most seemed composed, despite their harrowing ordeal.

For many hours, flames and black smoke could be seen shooting from the downed plane's broken fuselage, a wingtip jutting above the trees, moments after it crashed 200 metres at the end of the runway amid lightning strikes and driving rain at 4:03 p.m.

The dirty smoke billowed across the landscape, obscuring the view for passing drivers as the acrid smell of burning jet fuel hung heavy in the air, even several kilometres away.

Jennifer McCluskey, 22, was watching the storm from her office window when a loud roar from the vicinity of the airport told her something was terribly wrong.

"All of sudden I hear this roar, and I look over and it was the Air France plane and it just kept going off the runway," McCluskey said.

"It seemed like it was in slow motion. And it cleared the runway and went into the gully and exploded, burst into flames . . . as soon as it went into the gully, it burst into flames."

McCluskey and her co-workers said it seemed to take a long time for emergency vehicles to arrive on the scene.

"It seemed like an eternity," she said. "We were all just awestruck. Everybody had the same reaction. Everybody just wanted to cry."

The fact no one was killed in the crash was "miraculous," said acting Peel police Sgt. Craig Platt. "It's a relief there are no fatalities."

Air France issued a statement saying it was making arrangements to help families stranded in Canada.

"Air France is doing everything possible to take care of the passengers of this flight and bring the necessary assistance to their families and loved ones," the airline said.

Passenger Roel Bramar said he saw lightning in the sky as the plane was descending.

"Just as we landed, the lights turned off and that's unusual," Bramar reported. "The captain wanted to lower the plane as quickly as possible."

Glenn Schiller, a passenger in a plane that had already landed on the tarmac, watched the scene unfold.

"Looking out the window to the back of my aircraft, a thick, black billow of smoke began," Schiller said. "Emergency vehicles are flying around a couple thousand metres away across on the runway."

Schiller said the pilot of his aircraft told passengers there was "a landing incident."

"At the time the rain was coming down sideways," he said. "It was a vicious, vicious thunderstorm."

Thunderstorms create the possibility of wind shear - the sudden, dangerous air currents that can push an aircraft into the ground during takeoff and landing. It was not immediately apparent whether the plane had been struck by lightning.

As emergency crews sped to the scene, commuters on their way home from work on the multi-lane highway became snared in a massive traffic jam. At one point, another huge plume of smoke emerged from the wreckage, but it was unclear whether it was from an explosion.

A row of emergency vehicles lined up behind the wreck, and a fire truck sprayed the flames with water and foam. By 8 p.m., authorities were reporting that the fire had been extinguished.

Within minutes of the crash, with scant details about the injuries, the number of passengers and circumstances of the crash available, the spectacle was being broadcast live on television in Canada and the United States, much of it with the help of automated Ministry of Transportation cameras mounted to monitor the flow of highway traffic.

Perhaps the best indication of how serious the crash appeared to be at the time came from Governor-General Adrienne Clarkson, who issued a statement saying she was "horrified" and "deeply saddened" to hear of the accident.

"My heart goes out to all of those involved, and my thoughts and prayers are with them and their families," Clarkson said.

Federal Transport Minister Jean Lapierre also expressed his best wishes to the passengers and their family members, and said he would appoint an official observer to maintain the channels of communication between the ministry and the Transportation Safety Board.

"Any safety deficiencies uncovered through this investigation would be addressed immediately," Lapierre said.

At least nine flights scheduled to land at Pearson were diverted to in Hamilton, while nine others were expected to go to Montreal, either because of the crash or the thunderstorms, said a spokewoman for the Montreal airport authority.

Air Canada was warning about expected delays in Montreal because planes were unable to fly from Toronto. The airline also warned that several flights destined for Toronto had been delayed or cancelled.

Twelve international and domestic flights were also rerouted to the Ottawa airport, officials said.

The most serious plane crash at Pearson, Canada's busiest airport, was more than 30 years ago. In 1970 an Air Canada DC-8 jet, en route from Montreal to Los Angeles, went down north of the airport, killing all 109 people aboard.

The last major jumbo jet crash in North America was on Nov. 12, 2001, when American Airlines Flight 587 lost part of its tail and plummeted into a New York City neighbourhood, killing 265 people. Safety investigators concluded the crash was caused by the pilot moving the rudder too aggressively.

Pearson had been operating under vigilant security measures in the wake of deadly bombings in London.

The federal Transportation Safety Board wasn't offering any clues Tuesday about the cause of the crash, but a team would be taking over the site and recovering the flight's cockpit voice recorder and data recorder to piece together what happened.

"It's like a series of crime scene investigations," said spokesman Conrad Bellehumeur.

The agency will also interview passengers, crew, witnesses and air traffic controllers, and review both the radar and voice versions of recordings of the air traffic control activity, Bellehumeur said.

"We're going to follow every lead and as soon as we see something of importance that might have contributed to the crash, we'll make that known publicly. Normally accidents of this kind are not caused by one single factor."

Some facts about Air France and the Airbus A340 jet that crashed Tuesday at Pearson International Airport:

Airline: Paris-based Air France-KLM Group is world's largest airline in terms of revenue. Company is product of the French airline's acquisition last year of Dutch carrier KLM.

Financial: For year ended in March, airline earned $443 million US on revenues of $24.1 billion US.

Fleet: 375 planes; flies 1,800 daily flights

Passengers: Last fiscal year, it carried 43.7 million passengers to 84 countries. Largest European carrier in terms of passengers carried.

Plane: A340 is part of the A330/A340 family of six related aircraft, all sharing the same frame.

Manufacturer: Airbus, which is 80 per cent owned by European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. Britain's BAE Systems PLC owns the rest.

Model: Air France flys the A340-300.

Number of engines: 4

Range: 14,800 kilometres

Takeoff weight: 275,000 kilograms

Wing span: 60.3 metres

Maximum operating speed: 0.86 Mach

Source: Canadian Press

More News in this Category