So...
I think I know know where the confusion came from...
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| Air France Airbus in flames at Toronto airport |
| 2005-08-02 |
| TORONTO (Reuters) - An Air France Airbus burst into flames after apparently skidding off the runway at Toronto's Pearson International Airport on Tuesday, aviation officials said. A ticket agent in Montreal with Air France said the plane was its AF358 flight from Paris to Toronto, an Airbus A340 . "That's all we know," the agent said. Witnesses told Canadian television stations that the plane, which could carry 252 passengers, had apparently skidded off the runway after landing in rainy conditions. It was too early to say what might have caused the plane to miss the end of the runway. Live TV pictures showed huge clouds of black smoke and orange flames coming from the fuselage of the plane, which was off the end of a runway lying close to a main traffic artery. Air France's Web site showed that flight 358 left Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris was due to arrive at Pearson's terminal 3 on Tuesday afternoon. The airline's A340s are generally configured for 252 passenger seats. A spokeswoman for Aeroports de Montreal said no flights were landing at Pearson airport in Toronto following the accident. |
| Posted by:True German Ally |
| #28 All aboard survive Toronto Airbus crash Those people are very, very lucky. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2005-08-02 23:39 |
| #27 If the Airbus landed between 4pm - 4:15pm, then he pretty much flew over my head, though I didn't see the plane (or anything). From where I was he would have been about 20 seconds from touchdown, maybe even less. I can't imagine anything landing in that weather. Amazingly, another witness reported seeing other "heavies" landing on the same runway just before this one. The pilot then, would have had the information that other planes are attempting to land, before him. Based on this, he may have concluded it was ok to land (obviously the final decision rests with him). But I'm still not willing to take the air traffic controllers off the hook for this one. Someone screwed up. Thanks, Matt. |
| Posted by: Rafael 2005-08-02 22:42 |
| #26 This may have nothing to do w/anything,but the EU issued a Directive that passengers on airliners that don't reach their original destination get a substantial reimbursement from the Airline. Strong incentive not to divert. |
| Posted by: Stephen 2005-08-02 22:14 |
| #25 I don't know about runway length, but the Buffalo International Airport is very small, definitely 3rd tier. A pleasure to fly in and out of, if you don't have to make connections anywhere else (except that you probably will, just to get there). |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2005-08-02 22:12 |
| #24 And btw, nothing at Le Monde yet. I guess they don't bother to work long hours. The other French online papers were quite late, too. |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2005-08-02 22:07 |
| #23 It looks like the crew handled this very professionally. |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2005-08-02 22:03 |
| #22 I heard on the news that one of the passengers said all the cabin lights went out before touching down. Don't know if that means anything or not. |
| Posted by: Jackal 2005-08-02 21:51 |
| #21 Fox news show lightning bursts within 15 mins around the landing interval at the airport. It looked like a shotgun blast of bolts. My money is on lightning hiting the plane. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2005-08-02 19:54 |
| #20 Awesome job, Rafael. |
| Posted by: Matt 2005-08-02 18:42 |
| #19 By the way, that runway isn't very long as runways go at international airports, 9500ft, with a deep ravine at the end, which is where the plane ended up. Pearson airport will take some flak for this. I'm guessing that ravine will get filled in after this. |
| Posted by: Rafael 2005-08-02 18:25 |
| #18 Confirmed: Passengers obviously got out before flames got too bad... Good everyone is safe... So... I think I know know where the confusion came from... |
| Posted by: BigEd 2005-08-02 18:21 |
| #17 The plane is usually configured for 252. but there were 309 passengers and crew according to this. Makes one really look forward to flying the A400, usually configured for 800, with Air France. |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2005-08-02 18:18 |
| #16 There aren't really any big commercial airports nearby. The closest one is about one hour flight time away (Ottawa, Montreal, New York, Detroit). There's also Buffalo just across the border but it may not have a long enough runway. There's no question that they had enough fuel to wait this out, especially given that 30 minutes later the weather was fine (looking out the window now, I see blue skies). A case of really bad luck, I think. Maybe even a lightning strike. /reporting from the scene for Rantburg |
| Posted by: Rafael 2005-08-02 18:12 |
| #15 Just prior to the accident, the weather was bad, with rain, lightning, poor visibility and so forth, but it was not that severe to prevent landings. Just at that moment, at around 16:10 the weather turned severe with an extremely heavy downpour of rain. I haven't seen rain like this in years around here. It may be the plane was already committed to land, and was unlucky enough to just catch this severe weather. |
| Posted by: Rafael 2005-08-02 18:06 |
| #14 There are really enough other airports in the area, right? And you would come in with enough fuel to get there. But information policy of Air France is non existant. airfrance.com is down, airfrance.fr has "no incidents". But hell I wouldn't fly Air France anyway |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2005-08-02 17:57 |
| #13 I remember thinking, there's no way they're letting anyone land in this weather. EXTREMELY heavy rain, strong gusts of wind, lightning, poor visibility, all in the immediate vicinity. I was roughly 500 metres from the start of that runway outside a shopping mall, waiting for the rain to stop. This is definitely weather related (barring any mechanical failure). Someone should be fired for letting this plane land in such conditions. |
| Posted by: Rafael 2005-08-02 17:54 |
| #12 Got into airfrance.fr. Informations aux passagers Aucun événement àsignaler sur l'ensemble du réseau Air France. Pour plus d'informations sur nos vols, nous vous invitons àconsulter notre rubrique "Actualités des Vols". IDIOTS |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2005-08-02 17:50 |
| #11 Confirmed: Passengers obviously got out before flames got too bad |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2005-08-02 17:46 |
| #10 I was there, roughly 500m from the runway at the same time. Severe weather. There is a report now that everyone survived. |
| Posted by: Rafael 2005-08-02 17:44 |
| #9 There are survivors, casualties uncertain |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2005-08-02 17:42 |
| #8 The airplane came in too high for the landing That's what the term "Go Around" was invented for. If you are too high, just go up aand try again. |
| Posted by: Laurence of the Rats 2005-08-02 17:42 |
| #7 From Big Ed's link: Several passengers have been taken to hospital, and while casualty counts aren’t known, it’s apparent there have been some survivors. An unknown number were picked up on the Highway, fleeing the scene. The airplane came in too high for the landing, bumped down hard, a tire burst, it slid off the runway, then came the fire, according to the article. It doesn't sound like a terror attack. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2005-08-02 17:40 |
| #6 Air France sites are down |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2005-08-02 17:40 |
| #5 Accident or not? Any word about the passengers? |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2005-08-02 17:36 |
| #4 Eyewitness account |
| Posted by: BigEd 2005-08-02 17:35 |
#3 Another view |
| Posted by: BigEd 2005-08-02 17:34 |
#2  From Toronto TV Station/AP |
| Posted by: BigEd 2005-08-02 17:31 |
| #1 AirFrance/KLM flight.... http://www.geenstijl.nl/mt/archieven/images/vluchtschema.html |
| Posted by: Dutchgeek 2005-08-02 17:25 |