Air France crash in Toronto

Hope everyone is ok?

 

The airplane was hit by lightning as it landed.

 

Very eerie considering today is the 20 year anniversary of the crash of Delta 191 at DFW & from news reports it appears to be the same weather conditions.

 

For years now people have been warning about a plane ending up in that ravine.... Pearson is one of the hightest traffic airports in North America. I used to live in North TO and the eeeriest thing was sept 11 when they grounded all air traffic walking outside and not hearing a plane....

 

FOX and CNN are reporting NO fatalities
.

 

From what I heard on CNN a plane had already ended up in that ravine a few years ago!

I don't know what the revine is used for, but if its for drainage why don't they just fill in the stupid thing and put in underground pipes? Seems like the prudent thing to do after the first incident

 

Air France officials concur...incredible!


Some passengers claim that the plane made a very very hard landing. Which if this is the case, its possible that the plane experienced wind shear at the last moment, thrusting the plane into the runway, blowing the tires, rendering it unstoppable.

And if it was wind shear, they sure are extremely lucky that they were able to catch the runway at all, because had they experienced the wind shear earlier you could another tragic result similiar to the Delta crash at DFW 20 years ago.

All just a guess at this point, but I am sure the pilots will have a great deal of insight as soon as they are interviewed.

 

Now that is just awesome!!!

 

That's great to hear. There were very few injuries as well.

 

ummm they stop faster with flat tires, but i agree on the hard landing and loss of control. larger aircraft actually have blow out plugs that will purposely deflate the main gear tires ( not the nose tires) if the wheels get too hot. the flat tires help stop the aircraft faster. aircraft dont steer well much over taxi speed, you tend to go where you are pointed, one way or the other.

 

Interesting! Thanks for clearing up that misconception. How uncommon is it to lose stopping power by other ways?

 

wow, it's weird when something like this happens so close to home. Great to hear that there were no fatalities!

 

Article says the plane was an A340.

I take it this is the first ever A340 crash, the type having been introduced over ten years ago...

 

I guess one burnt down in France, but there was nobody inside.

The 340 is actually a very "safe" plane, though the structure seems nowhere as taught as the 777....wonder how it will age...
But then again, a more flexible cell may be a better thing....

Anyway, we can see that all the "new" generation of planes (777, 330, 340) are very safe, and hopefully free of the flaws elder planes had (MD11, DC10, 747 etc)

 

The crew were the hero's here. Getting everyone out in 90 seconds is beyond comprehension when you think how long it takes everyone to get their butt's in the plane while boarding. So the next time you think those ding-dong stupid blonde 'Stu's ' are only good for shluffing soda's, scotch and peanuts, you better think twice. They are pretty well trained before they get the chance to fly and be snotty to travelers!

 

The ravine is a natural river channel that runs down to lake ontario. there are dozens around the Toronto area and many of them are greenbelts that extend all the way in to the countryside. which is why, every now and then you get a Deer or Coyote in downtown Toronto looking around during rush hour wondering why everyone is trying to kill it.

The Airplane that ended up in the ravine before was at least 30 years ago (i think)

 

Pearson has some interesting runway over-runs, thats for sure. If it happened on another runway (the CAT 3 ILS approach approved 06L), it would have came to rest on a gas station. Given the weather condidtions, its suprising they werent using that runway.

It seems that the aircraft must have gone into the ravine at a fairly slow speed, given the damage and the lack of serious injuries. The biggest problem posed by the area seems to be in the rescue and fire fighting effort. Apparently, fire crews are still dealing with a few remaining hotspots at this hour.

Also, with the wind coming from the north west last night, you could smell the fire all the way into the downtown.

 

Gwen Dunlop, a Toronto resident who was on the flight returning from vacation in France, said when the plane first touched down the passengers believed they had landed safely and clapped with relief.

"Only seconds later, it started really moving and obviously it wasn't OK," said Dunlop. "At some point the wing was off. The oxygen masks never came down; the plane was filling up with smoke."

She said one of the flight attendants tried to calm passengers and tell them that everything was fine.

"One of the hostesses said, `You can calm down, it's OK,' and yet the plane was on fire and smoke was pouring in," Dunlop told The AP. "I don't like to criticize, but the staff did not seem helpful or prepared."

 

As an Airbus 330 capt, sounds like one difficult situation. The A330/340 aircraft is very susceptible to windshear conditions and speed sensitive, a fast touch down on a wet runway could easily result in what happened to AF, aqua plaining. The Capt and Crew did a remarkable job in a very dangerous situation, congrats to them all.
Well trained crew doing there job when needed.

 

Jam,

From a pilots perspective is the A340 underpowered?? Lufthansa use to fly them into Phx here and, when they are taking off it looks as if they use up nearly all of the runway and then climb out quite slowly.

Also the computer animations that they show on CNN i dont know how accurate it is but it does look like the AC touched down quite a ways down from the threshold of the runway.

 

Quite possible they did touch down long, the crash photo's show they still had the thrust reverser's out, they were trying to stop! Once you have landed and the spoilers deploy and you select reverse the only descision you can make is to continue with the landing. I haven't flown the 340 so I'm not going to speculate whether they are under powered or not, as we all take off at reduced thrust depending on our take off weight, that would explain why they use most of the runway at take-off. The 340 is a long haul aircraft and by being that, it uses alot runway at take-off because it has to carry alot of gas.
All I can say is that the AF emergency training must be good, to go from a hard landing to a full evacuation takes a quick mind change, well done to all the crew. And kudo's to AF training dept.

 

Presonaly..I would much rather have the plane stopped in a ravine..which more then likly saved a lot of people for serious injury because of the softer ground..then have it skid off the runway and end up on the 401 in the middle of rush hour..That ravine is there for a reason..and the reason has been explained on the TV graphicly.