Toronto: Plane crashes at Pearson Airport

[aimee]

Ani Ibi:

D-oh! Serves me right for trying to upgrade my Spanish. En tous cas, formidable.

'OH mon oui … en tous cas

vous parlez français? I wish I knew French better

It is a miracle not more were hurt.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

aimee:

vous parlez français?

I can get by. I used to work in French, but have lived in Toronto for some time now.

aimee:

I wish I knew French better

Me too. I am reading L’etranger for the upteenth time, but in English. I have read it in French, but I don’t have a French copy right now. In any case, I am good with reviewing my Spanish and maybe catching up on things since Franco.

aimee:

It is a miracle not more were hurt.

Totally. I am happy with this. I can hardly wait til we get some stories from the passengers tomorrow.

 

[Mom_of_one]

Ani, the minute I heard about this, I thought about you and started praying for this whole incident. God is merciful–He heard our prayers.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

Momofone:

Ani, the minute I heard about this, I thought about you and started praying for this whole incident. God is merciful–He heard our prayers.

Thanks Momofone and everyone else who prayed. Update: 43 minor injuries, no fatalities. The plane was evacuated in 90 seconds. The flight tower gave clearance to land although visibility was zero.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

The pilot had tried to land previously but had to abort due to very poor landing conditions.

 

[Richardols]

Textbook perfect evacuation in less than two minutes, and an injured co-pilot who wouldn’t leave the aircraft until he had checked that the plane was empty of passengers.

What magnificent performance by the Air France crew!

My 89 year old mother is going on her annual visit to Poland in late Autumn. I told her that she has no choice this year but to take Air France as far as they’ll carry her enroute.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

Black box found.

And:

To see unedited video of a news conference updating the investigation, click here.

To see officials answering questions about the crash, click here.

To see Enns detailing next steps for investigators, click here.

For information about flights, visit the GTAA’s web site.

For more details, check Air Canada.

Passengers make ‘textbook escape’

Passengers relate stories of survival

Survivor’s tale a personal journey of flight and fright

Backlogs cram Pearson

Air France chair praises crew

Wreckage a distraction for 401 drivers

Would you know what to do in a plane crash?

 

[Ani_Ibi]

A co-pilotwith 10,000 hours of flying experience was at the controls of Air France Flight 358 when it overshot a runway and burst into flames at Toronto’s main airport, airline chairman Jean-Cyril Spinetta said Wednesday.

Pearson International Airport fire trucks reached the scene of Tuesday’s fiery crash landing just 52 seconds after the Air France plane touched down, the airport’s fire chief said Wednesday.

“By that time, approximately three-quarters of the passengers had come down the chute and into the field,” said Mike Figliola, fire chief with the Greater Toronto Airports Authority.

 

[Karl_Keating]

What I haven’t seen yet in the news reports is the plane’s landing speed and how far down the runway it touched down.

Usually, if a plane “overshoots” a runway (at least one news report used this term), it means it was going too fast and landed too far down the runway. In fact, landing too far down the runway itself usually is a consequence of going too fast.

It still isn’t clear whether “overshoots” is the proper term: Did the plane go off the end of the runway or depart off the side? If the latter happened, it is possible that the plane was neither too fast nor too far down the runway.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

Karl Keating:

What I haven’t seen yet in the news reports is the plane’s landing speed and how far down the runway it touched down.

I do not yet know the answer to your specific questions.

However related information is as follows:

The restriction on landing had just been lifted. The Air France airbus was the first craft attempting to land after the lifting of the restriction. Weather conditions were heavy rain, hail, and lightning. There were also downbursts (unstable winds). The instruction from the tower to the co-pilot was “reduce speed to 160.” The co-pilot acknowledged.

As soon as the the tower noticed the accident, all planes were diverted to their ‘alternates.’

edit to add:

…A wind shear – a sudden change in wind speed or direction – could have thrown off the vehicle as it prepared to touch down…

The C.E.O. of Air France-KLM Group in Paris has added to the debate, speculating excessive water may have caused the plane to skid off the end of the runway…

Many felt the jet drop as it was about to land…

“Ultimately the pilot is flying his airplane,” adds Enns. “If the conditions are suitable or he deems them to be suitable, he can proceed and land. Prior to that, of course, he’s given instructions by A.T.C. Now that’s all going to be part of our investigation…”

edit to add:

A safety spokesman just said on CBC that his concern was the terrain beyond the landing strip. Basically the strip ends and the ravine begins. He prefers to see a flat patch of gravel to slow planes which overshoot the end of the strip. It seems many Canadian landing strips have similar unsafe conditions at the end of them.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

Karl, still no info on point of landing but some useful explanation of the effects of microbursts:

…Environment Canada had issued a severe weather alert Tuesday afternoon, saying its radar showed a rapidly developing thunderstorm with winds up to 100 kilometres per hour.

Mark Miller, an aviation expert for The Discovery Channel, says because of the intense heat and humidity in the region at the time of the accident, the winds would have become volatile.
That could have led to a phenomenon known as “wind shear”, in which the wind suddenly changes direction and becomes a strong down draft.

“You have hot air rising, and something has to replace it, so cold air comes down the middle of that cloud and as it rushes down the centre of that cloud and falls to the ground, that air rushing out of the bottom of the cloud, that’s the microburst or wind shear,” he explained to CTV’s Canada AM.

“If an airplane flies into that, it gets pushed down by that wind. And the microburst actually comes out a bit like an upside-down funnel. As the airplane flies into that funnel, it first hits the headwind, and then flies into the down burst, and then it actually picks up a tail wind. And that could potentially push an airplane further down a runway than it has to,” he explained.

“To compensate for that, pilots will add a little bit of extra power in the airplane, pick up a little bit of speed to help compensate for those kinds of winds. And again, that will cause you to land a little bit late and maybe a little bit fast…”

The greater danger from lightning, he says, is its ability to startle pilots while they’re trying to execute a difficult landing.
“A large bright flash like that could have distracted them. It would have probably been loud. That could have broken their concentration,” he says. “And in those few seconds that you’re re-gathering your thoughts, things potentially go wrong…”

“Rarely in an accident do we ever hear that an accident is caused by just one thing. But combine a whole bunch of things, all in a row, all happening at the same time, and you have this chain reaction…”

---

I remember hearing a few passengers very early on saying that the plane was travelling very very fast while it was on the runway.

I just confirmed that the tower instruction was “reduce speed to 160 knots.”

 

[Karl_Keating]

Often a microburst will plop a plane onto the runway–in essence, making it “land” too soon. In such a case, presuming the plane isn’t also knocked off to the side, the plane should have more than enough runway left.

On the other hand, if microbursts are feared but not actually present, the pilot may increase landing speed to compensate for them. This means he will need to touch down nearer the start of the runway. If he touches down at the usual point–and especially if he lands long–he might not have room enough to come to a stop before the runway runs out.

And then you have to factor in hydroplaning, which reduces or elminates the effectiveness of the brakes …

 

[Ani_Ibi]

Karl Keating:

On the other hand, if microbursts are feared but not actually present, the pilot may increase landing speed to compensate for them. This means he will need to touch down nearer the start of the runway. If he touches down at the usual point–and especially if he lands long–he might not have room enough to come to a stop before the runway runs out.

And then you have to factor in hydroplaning, which reduces or elminates the effectiveness of the brakes …

Whether it was due to erroneous compensation, tailwind, or deep water on the runway, passengers noticed that the plane was travelling ‘very very fast’ after it touched down.

 

[Siena]

They will not have any official numbers until they go over the black box