NEWS: Air France A340 Catches Fire, 291 Passengers Believed Safe

Apparently there were 309 people on board, including crew. All got out safely thank God, 24 reported with minor injuries: www.cbc.ca...

Its been weird here weather wise all day.

[edit on 2/8/05 by AlwaysLearning]

Check out what Air France has for the status of Flight 358

Origin The flight left Charles De Gaulle at 13H27
Destination The flight is arrived in L B Pearson at 16H03

Well, that's one way of putting it.

I'm not believing this. There are no CONFIRMED fatalities, but then again, it would be hard to confirm at the moment, seeing as the main passenger compartment is (or was shortly) on fire. People trapped in the main compartment probably can never be identified. Looking over all the footage, I haven't seen a single survivor yet. No chutes, no nothing.

I'm holding my breath, but I still expect at least a few fatalities.

DE

Appearently the explosions happenned a fair time after the craft came to rest.

Scared the hell out of me when it interupted Judge Judy. I heard "Passenger Plane Crash" and I just saw flashes of sitting in math class while the WTC building had smoke coming out of it, then the second one being hit....

But from what I heard there are few casualties, that the pilot did what he could to save as many as possible.

So Al-Quada have a weather machine now???????

Originally posted by DeusEx
I'm not believing this. There are no CONFIRMED fatalities, but then again, it would be hard to confirm at the moment, seeing as the main passenger compartment is (or was shortly) on fire.

Planes are certified for numbers of seats that can be evacuated in a set amount of time. Add to that it was at the end of a long flight and not fully laden with fuel etc. so its concieveable that they can all get out. They even have to mix in kids, elderly etc. Kudos to the flight crew (for the evacuation, not the runway overshoot), engineers of the plane, and the passangers themselves.

[edit on 8/2/05 by FredT]

This accident was not terror related what so ever. The storms we had this afternoon were incredible. I live 20 minutes away from Person Int'. We had hail, rain, and heavy wind. The storms stopped for a short period of time and suddenly reoccured. The storm at 3:30pm was the worst of the bunch.

Apparently the planes avionics went out due to a lightning strike. This is not suppose to happen. Won't the engineers at Airbus faces be red when they find the black boxes on that thing.

No one killed, that was amazing. Those firetrucks on site appeared brand new.

Originally posted by FredT


Planes are certified for numbers of seats that can be evacuated in a set amount of time. Add to that it was at the end of a long flight and not fully laden with fuel etc. so its concieveable that they can all get out. They even have to mix in kids, elderly etc. Kudos to the flight crew (for the evacuation, not the runway overshoot), engineers of the plane, and the passangers themselves.

[edit on 8/2/05 by FredT]

NBC evening news stated Standard Evac time for all aircraft is 90 seconds Fred. Apprently that is what the FAA set the standard at.

Many on scene reports stated the design of the airport may have played a role in this. The Ravien (sp?) or gully was put there for a reason and apparently it worked in favor of the passengers this time.

In additon some of the passengers stated contrary to some news reports the plane was on fire when it landed, which leads to what you stated. You have to give a Hi Five to the crew for doing their jobs very well.

I dont know if anyone posted it but i have the air traffic control talking to this flight moments before the plane crashes. They just talk about severe weather in the area and then the tower reports the plane left the runway and starts diverting all traffic. I just have no place to host it. If its already been posted then sorry.. if not pm me and ill send it to someone to post.

whats even more scary is this ALMOST happened about 3 days back at the Bombay intl airport when an Air India flight skidded on landing...
Again attributed to bad weather..
Although in this case the a/c was intact and could taxi on to the aero tunnel..
All survived this disaster.. REally amazing..Made my day...

Audio conversations have been uploaded. Here Click

This was the first crash ever of an Airbus A340.

All 309 people aboard survived, 24 got minor injuries.

A miracle...

BBC: Passengers survive plane inferno

Click the picture for BBC article...

So what was the actual cause of the crash???

Since runways are longer then needed, the pilot should of had room even if the wheels did some sliding.

and the plane probably has a infared camera...meaning they can see clearly through clouds or fog or rain.

I'm assuming it wasn't a lightming strike...right?

Wonder if this is a good or bad thing for Airbus...meaning: there plane crashed...however everyone survived.

I was watching CNN to hear an update and they told one womans story, who was on the plane.

She said that looking out here window she thought the plane was going to overshoot the runway, but it kept lowering fast and hit the ground hard 2 times, and she sad she was sure the tires must have blown from the hard impact, and then the place skidded of the runway.

They havn't interviewed the pilots yet, and eventually they will get the black box to get more details. So its still a little early in the game to point fingers...But at this point my guess would be human error. The pilot probably didn't like the weather and wanted to get it down asap, but he overshot the runway but didn't want to have to pull back up to make another attempt, he knew the runway was getting short, and he needed to get this thing down, and he lowered it to fast and smacked the runway, causeing damage to various systems, and lost controll of the jet and it slid into the creek surrounded by trees.

(thats my theory...i'll find out how close it is in the coming days.)

but at least they all walked away.

Just want to say that listening to this play out on TV and the great coverage our members here in ATSNN responded, you guys did a helluva good job. Well done

Originally posted by Murcielago

at this point my guess would be human error.

According to the BBC-article, the power went out just before they "landed". I don`t think it was human error, Murcielago...

"Several witnesses said they thought the plane had been struck by lightning as the power went out just before the plane landed."

My guess as to what happened based on current accounts so far is that due to the high gusting winds in the area the plane came into land at a higher aproach speed then normal. On final they probably caught a gust that caused them to go longer then normal and were not able to get the plane down soon enough. Realizing that they needed to get it down and under stress of the thunderstorm and the fact that they might have to do a a go around that would require more hastle they decided to continue the landing.

When landing they probably landed hard due to to shifting gusts and the fact that the gust that caused them to go long died off, they landed hard on the runway causing the tires on the right side to blow out and was ingested into the engine and caused a fire. The airplane then continued onto and over the end of the runway with the engine on fire unable to stop due to not being able to use the reverse thrusters and breaks due to the tires out and engine fire. When it came to a rest it caught the right side of the plane on fire. This resulting in the fire that engulfed the plane.

These is just my guess based on previous accidents similar to this one and flight condidtions.

Indeed it was a miracle that 309 passengers and crew could escape with their lives from this wreckage...with relatively few minor injuries. Check these out!

...deleted them because they were too small. don't know how to make them larger...



[edit on 4/8/05 by AlwaysLearning]

Is this the new Canadian Postage Stamp? Its a bit small. Do you have larger images?