Toronto Air France Crash (1 Viewer)

Rafy

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You've probally all heard about it now. Nice to see all survived though.

Although the media keeps showing footage of an Airbus A340-600 and saying that that was the type of plane. It was actually a A340-313X. Much shorter than the -600.

Anyway i hope this dosent put anybody off flying!

TORONTO, Canada (CNN) -- An Air France jetliner attempting to land at Toronto's Pearson International Airport overran a runway, smashed into a gully and burst into flames Tuesday afternoon.

All 297 passengers and 12 crew members survived the crash, Canadian authorities and the airline said.

Hospitals treated 24 people for minor injuries, said Steve Shaw, chairman of the Greater Toronto Airports Authority.

"I'm told the injuries were not serious," he said.

Gerard Power, a spokesman for the Humber River Regional Hospital in Toronto, said seven people were taken there for smoke inhalation.

Air France Flight 358 was arriving from Paris' Charles de Gaulle International Airport during a thunderstorm. Witnesses said it appeared lightning may have struck the plane.

The airport said it had issued a "red alert" ground stop during much of the afternoon before the crash "due to extreme weather conditions which resulted in the postponement of departing aircraft."

Two passengers told CNN the lights went out in the jetliner's cabin just before landing.

Roel Bramer, who was seated in the full aircraft's last row, said the plane "went up and down like a roller coaster" after it touched the runway and was already burning when it came to a stop.

Flight attendants quickly ushered passengers to emergency exit chutes, he said. "You don't think, you jump," Bramer said. Once on the ground, "I just ran like crazy through the fields over rocks and whatnot." (More accounts)

Corey Marx, who was watching planes land with his friend south of the tarmac, said, "Everything looked good, sounded good. It hit the runway nice, then all of a sudden we heard the engines backing up."

Marx said he initially didn't think anything was wrong. But then, "the guy I was with piped up, 'You know, he's getting pretty close to the end.' Immediately afterward, right off he went."
 

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After listening to the following exchange this morning, I thought that the list of casualties would have been quite extensive. Luckily that wasn't the case.

Two of us that were standing here, we were about to run over and you know, try to help sort of thing, but it went up in such flames and I mean there's still a couple of fireballs probably about five minutes ago still going up.

WOLF BLITZER (CNN): We showed our viewers that last fireball that just went up as well. Corey, how much time elapsed between the time that you saw the plane sort of stop, and break in half, and the flames really erupting? Was it only a matter of seconds?

COREY MARX: Seconds. Because we were about to make a move, thinking that you know, years ago there was another crash almost in the same spot and it went off the runway and didn't do anything. I mean, it was in seconds that the flames came up and we just decided to stay back.

The weird part about it is usually from my understanding if there is problem in the air, you know, the fire department, we have a big fire department onsite of all the three terminals, they're usually on the runways waiting for it to come in, but there was nobody, so this was just something that happened, whatever he hit and landed and just skidded off the runway.

Source: http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2005/s1428964.htm
 

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