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Air France Airbus crashes at Toronto airport

Friday, 05 August 2005

Air France Airbus crashes at Toronto airport

An Airbus A340 flying from the French capital, Paris to Toronto crashed in bad weather on Tuesday, 2 August, 2005. The plane skidded into a ravine and then burst into flames at Toronto International Airport. AirFrance

Incredibly, a total of 297 passengers and 12 crew fled the wreckage of the plane safely. There were just 43 passengers who suffered minor injuries.

Passengers described chaotic scenes as they tried to escape Flight 358 in pouring rain, lightning and thunder: "They immediately opened the side of the plane where they couldn't see any flames, and then they told us to jump," said passenger Olivier Dubois. "We all began jumping and running. We were running really fast... It was really, really scary." "It was very, very fast," Dubois said.

Transport minister Jean Lapierre made it clear how serious the situation was "I would say this is a miracle," he said. "It's nothing short of a miracle." A spokesman for the airport said the voice recorder and black box would now be retrieved from the aircraft and then investigated. Several witnesses suggested that the aircraft might have been hit by lightening just before landing, because that was the moment when the power went off.

Pearson International Airport in Toronto is one of the busiest in the world. Steve Shaw of the Greater Toronto Airport Authority said emergency services had been on standby at Pearson airport because of the developing thunderstorm throughout the day. The airport had been under a "red alert" since midday on Tuesday because of the danger of lightning strikes.

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