Toronto: Plane crashes at Pearson Airport

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Ani_Ibi

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In the last hour a plane has crashed at Pearson Airport. Very little information has been confirmed. The plane is believed to be Air France, carrying more or less 250 people. Just confirmed. The plane was believed to be attempting to land then burst into flames. Conjecture is that lightning struck: unconfirmed. The flames are growing in intensity.
 
Ani, I had just heard it on the radio before you posted this. Wow! Let’s pray there as many people rescued as possible.
 
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Edwin1961:
Ani, I had just heard it on the radio before you posted this. Wow! Let’s pray there as many people rescued as possible.
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Here’s a link. I feel horrible. The fire is clearly visible to commuters motoring home on the 401.

The flight was

Air France flight 358.

an airbus 340.

The Air France agent in Montreal has spoken to Reuters. David Dean is on CTV right now. OK now CTV is talking about an explosion. The plane stopped inside a ravine and it is hard for the rescue workers to get to it. There seems to be very little foam being sprayed onto the plane. :crying:
 
John Soldato from Consolidated Aviation is talking now. He is an eyewitness. He saw the plane land and then get struck by lightning on the fuselage. He surmises that the plane’s power went out immediately and the pilot lost control of the plane. He says there was a delay between the lightning strike and the plane bursting into flame. He surmises that the plane hit something in the ravine, cracked the fuel tanks, and the fuel ignited.

There are early estimates that 60 passengers got out. I’m trying to get you a link for CTV, but my server just hung on that screen.
 
Police report that some passengers have been picked up wandering on the 401 (the highway) and in other areas.

Here is the CTV link.







The Greater Toronto Airport Authority is expected to hold a press conference sometime after 5 p.m. ET.
 
Debbie Wilkes (Canadian figure skating choreographer) is talking now on CTV. She was travelling on the 401 at the time. Traffic was very slow due to pouring rain. She confirms that ‘lightning struck something.’ Then she saw thick smoke billowing and fire coming off the runway. It was about 1 minute between the strike and seeing the tail of the airplane ‘somewhere where it should not have been.’ It was difficult for cars to approach the scene because the 401 was a parking lot. But a few cars made it close to the plane and people got out trying to help. The smoke is now visible throughout Toronto.
 
Ed Moodie is another eye witness. He was driving along the express lane. He got out of his car and spoke to a stewardess who said she ‘thought she got everyone out.’ The stewardess was shaking. Moodie said there is a little underpass beside the river. And through the underpass he could see people wandering around ‘dazed’ and medics tending to people and carrying them away on stretchers and backboards.
 
Olivier de Beault is speaking now. He was a passenger sitting near the tail of the plane. The landing was delayed for about 20 minutes due to very bad weather. Then the plane started to descend ‘travelling very fast.’ Then there was a black-out, no power, everything went black. The plane touched down but was travelling ‘very very fast.’ It went off the runway into a ravine. Then the cabin filled with flames and smoke. There was a lot of panic, people running around like crazy. Olivier and his companion jumped off the plane together. In the ravine, they met a woman who drove them to an ‘emergency room’ in the airport.

City TV will start getting up to speed quickly. Here’s a link.
 
Just in on CTV: 3 busloads of passengers were removed from the scene. There were 291 crew and passengers in total. The pilot was injured. A copilot ran onto the 401 and flagged down a car to take him to the hospital. Four seriously injured passengers were taken to St Joseph’s Hospital (a great hospital and Catholic!) nearby and one passenger was taken to The Hospital for Sick Children all the way downtown.
 
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Franze:
I pray for the victims
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May have been answered. TV says all passengers/crew made it off.
Interesting: Today is the 20th anniversary of the big storm-induced crash of Delta 191 at Dallas. Only a few made it off, mostly by being thrown out on impact.
 
Press conference: Steve Shaw of the Greater Toronto Airport Authority. It is believed (unconfirmed) that all passengers were evacuated before the fire ignited. There have been 14 injuries (confirmed); no known deaths. It is known that there were four teenagers on the plane.

The airport has been on red alert since noon. Red alert means that the lightning detection equipment has been activated and no ground activity or marshalling of aircraft is allowed. At 1603 ET the plane touched down and then overran the runway by 200 metres.

Paul Bliss (CTV) reports that William Osler Hospital is on Code Orange (mobilized for disaster conditions). Five or six people have come in from the airport. 24 gurneys line the halls. Medical staff are in a room being briefed. It is believed that the pilot is at this hospital.
 
Jim Junkin (bless his heart) has spun the accident as an ‘absolute miracle’ because no one died. 🙂
 
2 passengers have been treated at Credit Valley Hospital in Mississauga.
 
Revised numbers: 309 including 12 crew. No life-threatening injuries. Wow! As they say in France: Formidable! Grace a Dieu.
 
Ani Ibi:
Revised numbers: 309 including 12 crew. No life-threatening injuries. Wow! As they say in France: Formidable! Grace a Dieu.
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remerciez Dieu
 
Ani Ibi:
Just in on CTV: 3 busloads of passengers were removed from the scene. There were 291 crew and passengers in total. The pilot was injured. A copilot ran onto the 401 and flagged down a car to take him to the hospital. Four seriously injured passengers were taken to St Joseph’s Hospital (a great hospital and Catholic!) nearby and one passenger was taken to The Hospital for Sick Children all the way downtown.
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So glad that the people on that plane were rescued. Prayers were answered in this case. We had two planes go down here in western Pennsylvania and in both cases no one survived. On one of them many of my co-workers were killed. On the other it was 9-11 and the passengers brought that one down to save other people in Washington DC.

But, I am confused with the copilot. Did he stay and help the others or did s/he leave prior to getting assistance to the passengers?
 
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KathleenElsie:
On the other it was 9-11 and the passengers brought that one down to save other people in Washington DC.
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Yeah, this whole plane business brought up all those 9/11 feelings again.
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KathleenElsie:
But, I am confused with the copilot. Did he stay and help the others or did s/he leave prior to getting assistance to the passengers?
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I gather that the passengers were evacuated first. The copilot wandered on the highway and flagged down a car. I do not know if rescue workers were on the scene at that time or not. However I do know that they were on the scene extremely quickly.
 
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