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Junkie
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To update....
Quote:
Black boxes recovered from crash
Jen Horsey
Canadian Press
August 3, 2005
TORONTO -- The black boxes from the Air France passenger jet that overshot a runway at Toronto's Pearson International Airport before crashing and bursting into flames have been recovered, an airport official said Wednesday.
The boxes -- the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder -- will be used to piece together details of what happened before the plane skidded into a wooded ravine on Tuesday afternoon, said Steve Shaw, spokesman for the Greater Toronto Airports Authority, which manages Canada's busiest airport.
"I can confirm that the black boxes have been recovered," Shaw told a news conference.
The black boxes were to be sent to Ottawa and any communication between the pilots and the control tower or other recorded information was to be downloaded at a lab in Ottawa.
Federal Transportation Minister John Lapierre refused to speculate on what caused Air France Flight 358 to crash. But he cited the view of some experts who believe a contributing factor was severe weather that included driving rain, hail and thunder and lightning.
"There will be a number of factors associated with the occurrence," he said.
"Extreme weather conditions are one factor they will be considering in their investigation," Lapierre said of the investigation by the Transportation Safety Board.
The general manager of Air France in Canada refused to take questions at the media briefing, but said airline staff is "fully engaged" in helping passengers who need assistance.
"Air France wants to express our solidarity to passengers and their immediate families," said Christian Lahceen.
LaPierre said his "heart just sank" when he first heard of the crash while flying to Iqaluit, Nunavut because the first report he heard suggested more than 200 passengers had died.
During refuelling, he heard the truth -- that all 309 passengers and crew had survived, with only 43 people sustaining minor injuries.
"I felt a sense or relief," said Lapierre, "because I was so afraid that we would have such a bad accident."
Lapierre cited statistics that showed the number of accidents in the Canadian air sector was down over last year.
Earlier, officials said the evacuation of passengers took less than two minutes, with a co-pilot the last to leave the flaming wreckage.
One fire official said it was a "textbook case" of how to deal with an airliner emergency.
Three-quarters of the passengers and crew escaped the wreckage in the 52 seconds it took for emergency crews to arrive, said airport fire Chief Mike Figliola.
"The evacuation was a minute and a half to two minutes maximum," Figiola told a news conference.
"The crew did a great job, they're trained to get the people off. This is what they're trained to do and they did it perfect. It was a textbook case of getting the plane evacuated."
The Airbus A-340's engines had just started to burn when Figiola arrived on the scene less than a minute after the crash.
"I just saw lots of fire," he said. "It was a big fuel load, luggage, combustibles . . . I was probably 50 yards away from the aircraft. My face was burning; it was very intense."
The A-340, never before involved in a crash in 13 years of commercial service, descended from a blackened, lightning-streaked sky Tuesday before skidding down a rain-slicked runway and toppling into a wooded ravine, its engines erupting in flames.
To ease traffic delays on nearby Highway 401, Canada's busiest highway, police were urging commuters to resist gawking at the broken body of the aircraft, which remained slumped in a wooded area just metres from the highway, coated in fire-retardant foam, a wingtip jutting above the trees.
Don Enns, a senior investigator with the federal Transportation Safety Board, said the probe into the cause of the crash had begun.
Lingering hot spots were extinguished by early afternoon, he said.
Canada will take the lead on the investigation, Enns said. Air France officials were on their way to Toronto and expected to arrive later Wednesday afternoon.
Police said they did not consider the probe of the crash a criminal investigation.
"We're treating this event as an accident at the moment," said Peel Region police Sgt. Craig Platt. "There's certainly nothing at this time to indicate anything but that."
Aviation experts have said extreme weather conditions at the time of the landing -- high, unpredictable winds, driving rains and lightning -- likely played a key role in the crash.
Brian Lackey, vice-president of operations for the Greater Toronto Airports Authority, which manages the airport, said staff were struck by the severity of the storm as they watched it unfold through the windows.
"As we were looking out the window we were commenting that storm was extremely severe and we hadn't seen one like that," he said.
Asked to comment on reports from passengers that the pilot was forced to circle the airport after aborting an initial attempt to land, Lackey said that was still under examination.
"We haven't reviewed the tapes from the tower yet," he said. "Normally if there are thunderstorms in the area, a pilot may decide to circle until it's safe to land."
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It's just great news that there were no deaths involved in an accident this huge. There were reports on the news this morning that the pilot was circling the airport due to a "red alert" warning because of the weather. They (at the last report I heard) weren't sure if the entire thing was caused by pilot error or not.
Kudos to the airline attendents that keep their heads together enough to evacuate that many people in under two minutes! Holy crap.
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