Passenger airplane crashes at end of Toronto runway

[J.R.]

This just happened within the last ten minutes.

Early reports from the FOX News Channel, that broke in with a FOX News Alert, says that it is an Air France aircraft with over 200 people on board.

It appears from the traffic camera that the plane caught fire, then crashed into a wooded area at the end of the runway. Pearson International Airport has reported that all flights have been delayed or cancelled.

This is so fresh, no article has been posted on it yet.

[Max Power]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4740381.stm
Wow

[Max Power]

There's more details on the CBC website if anybody is interested. Not to point out the obvious but this is extremely bad news and I hope there are some survivors

[J.R.]

Great! They just got Shepard Smith on the FNC.

Looks to be a fault of some weather in the Mississauga area, including thunderstorms and heavy wind gusts going across the runway.

For those in Toronto on the west end, avoid the 401 like the plague tonight. Going either way, it looks like a disaster out on the highway.

It has just been reported that the pilot and co-pilot have survived and are being debreifed. That's great news and hopefully the passengers are okay too.

[Mel]

Man that's just horrilble, I truly hope they are able to save a lot of the passengers.

But it doesn't sound good. I found this:

TORONTO -- A passenger jetliner caught fire Tuesday after skidding off a runway in a fierce thunderstorm at Pearson airport in Toronto. Black smoke billowed from the wreckage as the aircraft burned.

A row of emergency vehicles lined up behind the wreck, and a fire truck sprayed the flames with water. The operation was broadcast live on television in Canada and the United States.

The flaming ruin was next to the four-lane Highway 401, Canada's busiest highway, and some cars and trucks stopped on the roadway after the crash.

There was no immediate word on casualties.

Police said the plane was an Air France passenger jet that was trying to land when it ran into trouble. There was a storm -- with lightning, strong wind gusts and even hail -- in the area at the time.

Police Sgt. Glyn Griffiths said it was not know if any passengers had been taken from the plane.

Leah Walker, a radio reporter in Toronto, said she saw a third of the plane fall and that the rest became a fireball. "This plane attempted to land in some very fierce weather we had today," she said.

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 neighborhood, killing 265 people. Safety investigators concluded that the crash was caused by the pilot moving the rudder too aggressively.

Just saw your post JR, if the pilot and co-pilot are OK that is very encouraging news.

[Leafs_Fa_Life]

It has just been reported that the pilot and co-pilot have survived and are being debreifed. That's great news and hopefully the passengers are okay too.

That's great news. Looking at it on the television I didn't think anyone would survive. Hopefully more people are pulled out from the flames and smoke.

[leaferfan87]

It's on CNN.

Must have been bad storms. My work at Don Mills and York Mills didn't have bad weather, but a bad storm must have rolled through the airport and my house as all my electronics were wonky when I got home.

[go_leafs_go02]

The flaming ruin was next to the four-lane Highway 401, Canada's busiest highway, and some cars and trucks stopped on the roadway after the crash.

Try something like 16-lane Highway 401. It must be a mess there, although traffic looks to be light right by the accident, but probably due to the massive backlog.

I heard the 427 is closed, and the 401 is impassable.

Hopefully everyone is alright. I was watching CablePulse24 (toronto news network) and you could see around 4 PM that there was torrential downpours in the west end of Toronto (they have highway cams to show traffic) You could not even see the road in someplaces.

[Bob burns]

CBC just said there were no deaths, just a few injuries. That's good, especially considering what the first images and videos looked like. Supposedly the nose of the plane and an entire two-thirds of it hung in the revine and was on fire.

[Mel]

CBC just said there were no deaths, just a few injuries. That's good, especially considering what the first images and videos looked like. Supposedly the nose of the plane and an entire two-thirds of it hung in the revine and was on fire.

Are you serious? :eek: That's incrediby great news after the preliminnary reports and photos. That's a miracle if it's true! :)

[Bob burns]

No fatalities in Toronto airplane fire

All the passengers aboard a jet that skidded off a runway and burst into flames at Pearson International Airport Tuesday survived the ordeal, according to fire officials on the scene.

There were 14 minor injuries, however.

One passenger aboard the Air France Airbus A340, Roel Bramar, told CBC News that he saw lightning just as the plane landed in a torrential downpour at about 3:50 p.m.

"I'm sure that the bad weather was responsible," said Bramar, who was not injured and managed to scramble off the plane by means of an emergency chute. He was the second person off the plane, he said.

Flight 358 from Paris had been scheduled to arrive at Toronto at 3:35 p.m. EDT. Some reports said it landed safely, but then something went badly wrong.

The plane skidded off Runway 24 Left, an east-west runway laid out parallel to one of Toronto's busiest roads, Highway 401. It ended up in the Etobicoke Creek ravine, a small valley at the far west end of the airport, the aircraft's fuselage tipped down and its tail in the air.

"We had a hell of a roller-coaster going down the ravine," Bramar said. "All I could think of was 'Get off!'"

Rescue crews are still on the scene.



The incident happened as most operations at the airport were grounded because of severe thunderstorms in the area.

At mid-afternoon Tuesday, a spokesperson with the Greater Toronto Airports Authority said lightning was causing technical problems with the airport's lightning-detection system. All aircraft were grounded for safety reasons as a result, largely to protect crews working on the ground.

The Greater Toronto Airports Authority has scheduled a news conference for 6 p.m. to give details about the crash.

In the meantime, all incoming flights were being rerouted to Ottawa's airport.

cbc (http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/08/02/pearson-plane050802.html)

[TimmyTabasco]

I've been watching CBC/CTV/CNN :D

Its good to hear that everyone managed to get off the plane, including the captain.

Remind me never to fly Air France :coffee:

[leaferfan87]

I was on the school bus riding back from camp with the kids when the bus company came on the radio and started telling people to avoid Carlingview and the 401. At that point we had no clue what was going on. Was there a plane crash? Was there a terrorist attack? Finally figured out what was going on when we got home. Surprised to see it on CNN.

[a4l]

Thank goodness everybody is ok.

[leaferfan87]

Everybody is all right it is looking like. Just some injuries that have to be treated in hospital, but nobody died fortunately.

[a4l]

Remind me never to fly Air France :coffee:

I think that Air France personel did a fantastic job of getting everybody off the plane. I would feel safe knowing that they have great crews. But then that is just me.

[Amoroq]

This truely is a miricle, and it happened in Toronto, which proves the Leafs have a shot.

Seriously, its not everyday that a jet plane crashes, and bursts into flames and no one dies, the plane and the people on board were truely touched by the hand of God and probably changed the direction of more then a few lives of the people involved. A tragic event that turned into a good news story.

[J.R.]

Wow, what a shock it is to hear that everyone survived. Just judging by the first video images I saw and especially the explosion that followed during the fire fighting effort, I was quite sure that there wouldn't be anyone that lived through it. Then we received the word that the pilots were alive, and finally that all the passengers were well. Only "minor injuries," so it's been great news today on what could have been a major disaster.

[Max Power]

I think that Air France personel did a fantastic job of getting everybody off the plane. I would feel safe knowing that they have great crews. But then that is just me.

I agree...
Someone at work today told me they saw an interview with a passenger excessively complaining that the crew wasn?t prepared for this and was not helpful. To this lady I say shame on you! Very few people can be prepared for this because very few have ever survived or been through it. The passengers evacuated the plane in what 3 minutes and everyone survived? That to me mean something went right.

[TimmyTabasco]

I think that Air France personel did a fantastic job of getting everybody off the plane. I would feel safe knowing that they have great crews. But then that is just me.

It was a joke.

Perhaps I should start using your old sig :coffee: :nod:

[Max Power]

Jet crash probe 'may take years'


An inquiry into how an Air France jet burst into flames after skidding off a runway in Toronto could take months or years, air investigators have warned.
Flight data and voice recorders have been recovered from the wreckage of the Airbus A340, which crashed in bad weather on Tuesday.

Air investigators hope the so-called black boxes will hold vital clues.

All of the 309 passengers and crew escaped, in what Canada's transport minister has called a "miracle".



Some 43 people were injured in the accident.

Theories

Investigators have been clambering over the blackened shell of the plane, which is believed to have broken up into three large chunks.

The two flight records retrieved from the cockpit have now been sent for analysis.


There are several theories about what happened as the plane from Paris landed amid thunder and lightning at 1603 local time (2003 GMT).

After touching down on the runway, it lurched across the wet tarmac before skidding towards the airport perimeter.

The plane overshot the runway by about 200m (660ft) and came to rest with its tail pointing in the air in a shallow ravine next to Canada's busiest motorway, Highway 401.

Moments after the last survivor clambered away from the jet, the fuselage was engulfed in smoke and flames.

One theory is that water accumulated on the runway, causing the aeroplane to lose traction.

Another idea is that a strong head wind forced the aircraft off course around the time of the landing.

The chief Canadian investigator promised to look at every possibility, and warned that these kind of accidents are seldom the result of a single cause.

But Real Levasseur questioned the suggestion that lightning was responsible for Tuesday's accident.

"We've had many cases of aircraft that have been hit by lightning and it's normally not a problem," he said.

'Perfect order'

The chairman of Air France has also arrived to survey the wreckage.


About 3.30pm the day turned to night as the fiercest storm we have had for a long time got into full swing
Andy Horton
Mississauga, Ontario


Jean Cyril Spinetta praised the flight crew and defended the working order of the plane, which entered service in 1999.

"When it left Paris it was in perfect working order," he said.

It is the first major crash for an Airbus A340-300 since the model's debut flight in October 1991.

The plane was last inspected on 5 July.

It had flown 28,418 flight hours across a total of 3,711 flights.




Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/4743897.stm

Published: 2005/08/04 07:25:06 GMT

? BBC MMV

[monster]

This is the 4th air france plane that has gone down either landing or taking off...I think the engineers are doing something wrong.