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Posted on 08/03/2005 6:16:28 PM PDT by jdm
TORONTO (AP) - The flight from Paris had been a breeze for the students, businessmen and vacationers, until Air France Flight 358 started its final descent - and it suddenly became clear a furious thunderstorm was enveloping the packed Airbus A340.
As crewmembers made landing announcements, passengers like Caroline Diezyn, Olivier Dubois and Ahmed Alawata made sure their seat belts were tight against the turbulence. They stared out the windows but saw only blackness in the afternoon sky.
For the 297 passengers and 12 crew, a harrowing landing in Toronto on Tuesday would end in a textbook evacuation. Most were out in just 52 chilling seconds, and no one was killed. Some credited pilots who fought the raging weather surrounding Pearson International Airport, which was on "red alert" status because of the electrical storm.
In the midst of Flight 358's first approach to an east-west runway, the plane abruptly pulled up. A flight attendant announced that bad weather forced the aborted landing. "The captain is going around," Alawata recalled her saying as the plane circled.
When it descended again, only an occasional flash of lightning illuminated the sky.
In the cockpit, pilots received final direction from air traffic control.
"Air France 358 ... approach 24 left."
"24 left," the Airbus replied.
"Air France 358 reduce speed now to 160 knots (184 mph)."
"Reducing to 160 ..."
"Air France 358 slow to your final approach speed."
The flight's path closed on the runway.
Sitting in the back, returning from a wedding in France, Veronica Laudes, 36, looked out the left window.
"What is that?" she said, spotting "a little line of smoke."
It was then - about 4 p.m., as the jetliner neared touchdown - that the lights in the cabin went out. "It was all black in the plane," Dubois said. "There was no more light, nothing."
Seconds later, as the wheels touched down, passengers applauded in relief. But the landing was hard, and in an instant, screams replaced the cheers.
The plane was not slowing down.
"We just kept going so fast," said 18-year-old Diezyn, returning home to London, Ontario, after a monthlong vacation in France.
"We bumped once, and then we kept bumping," she said, describing how the Airbus careered down the runway. "The lights went off and the oxygen masks came down."
Skidding 200 yards off the runway, the jetliner came to rest in a ravine. Flames were seen on the left side and tail of the plane.
Bags were "flying down" from the overhead bins, and the plane was coming apart, said South African student Eddie Ho, 19.
The flight crew responded immediately, said Dominique Pajot, 54, a businessman from Paris, who was sitting in first-class. "They were very quick to get up and open the doors and help people and calm them." Ho recalled an announcement from the cabin, urging all to remain calm.
But fire in the rear of the plane caused alarm, and passengers charged for the exits.
"People were tripping over each other, climbing over the seats to get to the exit," Ho said.
At a front door where Ho said he was directed to go, there was no chute to slide down and the drop was about 12 feet. He ran to a second door. It had a damaged chute, but he took it.
"I jumped and fell onto some people," Ho said. "Some people broke their arms or legs."
"Stewardesses started pushing everyone out," said Diezyn, who said she jumped down a chute in the back of the plane. She cut her legs on the tall, sharp grass in the wet field where they landed.
Many passengers lost pieces of their clothing when they jumped from the plane; others took off rain-soaked clothes and exchanged them for warm blankets.
Astonishingly, within 52 seconds, three-quarters of those on board were out of the plane.
The evacuation of everyone - more than 300 people - took less than two minutes, with a co-pilot the last to leave the flaming wreckage, airport Fire Chief Mike Figliola said.
"It's nothing short of a miracle," said a stunned Jean Lapierre, Canada's transportation minister, referring to the fact that nobody died.
After escaping, Pajot said, "We ran because it was burning. We walked down the river to the bridge. One lady was carried by a man."
He said the pilot was with them and appeared to be injured.
On rainswept Highway 401, Canada's busiest, which runs parallel to the ravine where the plane halted, drivers suddenly saw what seemed like zombies in a horror movie.
"Oh my God, what's going on?" Yvonne Boland thought as she stopped to help. "Four people, eight people, 12 people streaming up," she told the Toronto Star.
Guy Ledez, a "floating" manager for Budget rental cars at the airport, was driving on airport grounds, parallel to the descending plane. He said he was "pretty sure" he saw lightning strike the aircraft.
"There's all this lightning right on it, then there was smoke and then the plane just disappeared down the ravine," he told The Associated Press.
He said he ran toward the gully and began pulling passengers up out of the mud.
"I looked down; there's just a sea of people trying to get up," said Ledez, 37. "I had two babies passed to me. There were elderly people who couldn't get up, so we went down and pulled them up."
When the stream of passengers ended, he said he and another man who had stopped to help them climbed up an emergency escape chute and into the burning plane. Each took an aisle and did a sweep to make sure nobody had been left behind.
The other man - whose name he never got - jumped from the plane. Just as Ledez was jumping out, there was an explosion from the back of the plane, one that ultimately ripped the aicraft into pieces.
"That explosion completely woke me up to what was happening," said Ledez, who was labled by the media Wednesday as a hero who risked his life to save the passengers.
Diezyn's father drove 120 miles to pick her up from the airport.
She said the flight was overbooked out of Paris and airline officials had offered vouchers for people to stay another night.
But she turned them down, because she knew her mother expected her home on Tuesday.
"That was one of the first things I thought of," she said as she left the airport Tuesday night. "I should have stayed in Paris."
Thanks! ;-)
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What kills me is the fact that the media is still calling it a disaster.
I'd hate to see this tried on the new giant airbus.
Landing in the face of a severe thunderstorm ain't the smartest tactic in the world. This is what alternate airports are for.
The annals of the NTSB are filled with stories of planes that crashed either on takeoff or landing in the face of a thunderstorm. Hell, it's one of the first rules a student pilot learns.
> (A Textbook Evacuation)
Actually more like an FAA Cert demo, with only some of
the slides working. If aviation authorities had ever been
thinking of loosening evac standards, they sure won't now.
It's an amazing story.
The final report on this accident will be interesting.
The fact that the capn' had already gone around once
does not reflect well on his judgement to try again
under what apparently were the same or worse conditions.
Did he attempt a second rejected landing, only to loose
control of this FBW a/c due to a lightning strike?
Touchdown is not an apt time for system reboots.
Careered or Careened?
I just heard a guy on Fox that escaped the plane say that people were actually trying to save their LUGGAGE!!!!!!!!
Unbelievable that it all worked out so well.
In that situation, I'm pretty sure I'd use the George Costanza method.
"I'd hate to see this tried on the new giant airbus"
I agree. I think this may have had something to do with the style of manufacturing. I've heard that Airbus manufactures its aircraft very cheaply.
If this had been a Boeing 777, this probably wouldn't have happened.
I would have to say that 309 people won the lottery.
Actually, 'career', meaning to rush at full speed, is a slightly better word in this context than 'careen', which implies a lurching from side to side while in motion...
NLDN. The National Lightning Detection Network covers all the USA/Canada and reports lightning strikes to a central station. Local storm data is available by subscription. Past strike information is archived and accessible upon request.
Lurching from side to side while in motion is exactly what other passengers described. And you definition of career is the secondary depricatede definition, in common mis-use. A journalist should know better.
Yep. This one's probably going to end up classified as "pilot error". It sounds like poor judgment and "get-there-itis".
A good reminder that flight attendants aren't just there to serve drinks and pretzels and get your pillows. They are there precisely for this kind of situation.
When the stream of passengers ended, he said he and another man who had stopped to help them climbed up an emergency escape chute and into the burning plane. Each took an aisle and did a sweep to make sure nobody had been left behind.
Guts. And a kind heart.
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