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Investigators Probe Toronto Airbus Crash

Posted on: Wednesday, 12 October 2005, 12:00 CDT

AN investigation has begun into an aviation great escape$ which saw all 300 passengers ! including seven Britons ! survive a plane crash at Toronto airport.

Almost miraculously, everyone on board the Air France plane managed to get clear before flames and smoke engulfed the aircraft which had gone off the end of the runway in bad weather at Pearson International Airport.

Casualties were restricted to 43 of the Airbus A340&s passengers. They suffered minor injuries and were treated at five Toronto hospitals.

The Foreign Office said none of the Britons on board were hurt.

With the crew and passengers available for interview as well as many other eye witnesses, aviation experts believe the investigators will establish the cause of the crash very quickly.

They should get to the bottom of this pretty soon because they have so many people to talk to and items they can study,$ said Chris Yates, aviation safety analyst for Janes Transport.

Investigators will want to look at the weather conditions, the radar data, the pilot&s conversation with air traffic controllers and the runway conditions.

They will also want to know if the pilot, perhaps low on fuel, had no option but to land and if the runway had been inspected.

The pilot might have found that having touched down, he had no braking power because of the surface water on the runway.

The investigation ! by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada ! will also look at the possibility that the plane, with 297 passengers and 12 crew aboard, could have been struck by lightning.

As the investigation began, the passengers, who included more than 100 Canadians and more than 100 French citizens, told their stories.

They spoke of how they had clapped and cheered as the plane touched down at Toronto, having had to fly in circles above the Canadian airport because of the bad weather.

Passenger Gwen Dunlop, returning to Canada from a holiday in France, said: It happened so quickly ! it was a little bit like being in a movie.

At some point the wing was off. The oxygen masks never came down. The plane was filling up with smoke.$

She said some passengers went down emergency chutes, while others just jumped out on their own.

Source: Belfast News Letter, The

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