I'm surprised no one brought this up yet... it occured 4 hours ago and is on TV since. Its amazing that the plane crashed off the runway and ALL 309 people on board survived. Usually when on hears of a plane involved in an accident, its tragic. The Air France crew also did a good job getting everyone out of the plane before the large flames spread.

I heard about that. After seeing some photos of the plane, it is astounding that all 309 people aboard survived. Good crew training I suppose. I know that this incident will surely bring up some hot Airbus vs. Boeing debates on the airliners.net forums.
-Joe

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Sooner or later every car falls apart, ours does it later!
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I'm not "astounded" in the least.

If the structure of the airplane remains intact, and fire does not envelop the fuselage, it takes no more than three minutes to safely evacuate this airplane via the chutes.

The fire was delayed for a bit until everybody left the aircraft. Then the photos were taken after evacuation to allow you to be "astounded".

You want to be seriously "astounded":

Look up the Air Transat flight 236, an A330 that ran out of fuel over the North Atlantic, 100 miles from the Azores. The pilot had one shot at a landing, and he made it.

Now that is astounding. I'll remember that story as long as I live.

Glad for everyone involved that it was not any worse than it was....for once. I think there is a planeload of people who should run out and play the lottery.

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1971 280SE W108
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"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche

Being fairly close to the Toronto area I watched this unfold live on the idiot box. What surprised me about the survival rate was how fast the flames spread. The fire started out at the rear of the plane, and according to one survivor talking on Canadian news sortly after, there were flames visible as soon as the plane stopped. He was seated in the back and somehow managed to be the 2nd off, or possible 2nd out his nearest exit. Once the fire got going it spread quickly towrd the front. The live news feed came from one of the highway cameras on the 401 near the airport.

The Pearson Intl Fire Department had an excellent respnose time. They were on scene in under a minute I believe.

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Mike Tangas
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2012 VW Jetta Sportwagon TDI...at least its a diesel

Non illegitemae carborundum.

I saw the "Dateline" on that . . . landing at night, no transponder to give alt or airspeed info, on a military strip, dead stick. Before that, Aloha Airlines Flight 243, sticks out in my mind as an astounding job of flying.

Gotta agree with that......I sat there slack jawed when I saw that the first time...absolutely unbelievable they got that one down...

__________________
Proud owner of ....
1971 280SE W108
1979 300SD W116
1983 300D W123
1975 Ironhead Sportster chopper
1987 GMC 3/4 ton 4X4 Diesel
1989 Honda Civic (Heavily modified)
---------------------
Section 609 MVAC Certified
---------------------
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche

Not to hijack the thread... any possible links to videos of these past accidents?

Well, I can tell you that I don't think there was any video of the Air Transat flight. But, there is a ton of info about it.

The airplane had a fuel leak at one of the engines.

The crew compounded the problem by linking the fuel for the good engine to the bad engine and ran the airplane out of fuel.

The pilot pulled a feat that would best be described as impossible, however, he made his own bed with that one. Completely screwed up the fuel management due to lack of knowledge of the A330.

There are quite a few photographs of the Aloha B-737, and there might even be a video of it. He landed in daylight.

Here's a link to the Toronto Hwy 401 traffic cam page.

http://www.mto.gov.on.ca/english/traveller/compass/camera/camhome.htm

It's dark now. When I watched the news after it happened, the location text was visible on the bottom of the screen.

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Warren

Currently 1965 220Sb, 2002 FORD Crown Vic Police Interceptor

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Not part of the in-crowd since 1952.

He glided for 100 miles?

He did. Might have been just under 100.


Edited: Something didn't seem right. 100 miles is a bit too far to glide and still setup for a proper approach.

He lost the first engine at 100 NM from the airport. The second engine went out 10 minutes later. This would put him about 40 miles from the airport in full glide.

Sorry about the error.

Truly amazing skills attributed to everyone involved. The media is still in speculative mode, but it appears this is roughly what happened-

-overshot the runway due to wind-shear and finally touched down near the halfway point
-rear of fuselage was struck by lightning as soon as wheels touched the ground, creating the fire and knocking out at least the cabin lights. Unknown what electrical systems the pilots were left with
-decision was made to kill engines instead of applying reverse thrust
-plane was slowed with wheel brakes- most momentum was lost by the end of the runway, otherwise the plane would have bounded across the ravine and broke up- possibly even up onto the highway. All on board would have been killed, with possible ground casualties as well had the plane not been slowed as well as it had.

Overall, it appears that fuel tank explosions did not occur until close to a half hour after impact. From what I saw on the live broadcast, the fire equipment had been removed for a period of time shortly before those explosoions occurred. Then within 5 minutes, they were back on the scene.

Truly a remarkable case of everyone doing their jobs. Hats off to both Air France and Pearson Airport- and I think it's safe to say those brakes did not come from Pep Boys!

Dave M.

That's got to be the longest 40 miles he ever traveled. I love stories like that. The best one I've heard is when Shackleton and two of his guys crossed something like 800 miles of ocean in a jury-rigged life boat and hit the only inhabited island on that part of the globe. Incredible feat of navigation.

I am so relieved there's been no French bashing on this thread. Don't know why I was afraid that might be happening....

The French have done me some good. Ya'ever read Les Miserables? Haven't seen the play; the movie with Liam Neeson was weak -- you'd need an 8 part Masterpiece Theater Special, about an hour and a half each, to really do justice to the story.

If you do want to read it (who knows?) I'd recommend an abridged version first, I like the one that Somerset Maugham did, and if you're really psyched, take on the unabridged (1200+ pages). There are many chapters in the unabridged that are virtually useless -- minutae of the French Revolution and various Napoleanic battles -- but there are several that really flesh out the story.

All in all, a mind blowing, almost impossibly heroic story. But I want to believe it is possible. Got have something to hang onto.

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