Online Reporter
TORONTO. − Toronto Pearson International Airport, the site of Monday’s Delta flight crash in which remarkably nobody was killed, was the scene of another “MIRACLE” 20 years ago.
Air France Flight 358 crashed at the Canadian airport on August 2, 2005, after trying to land during heavy rain and lightning.
All 297 passengers and 12 crew members on the Air France plane survived the crash, an outcome described by then-Canadian Minister of Transport Jean Lapierre as a “miracle.”
The Airbus A3430-313 originated in Charles de Gaulle in Paris, France, and was scheduled to land at Toronto Pearson around 4 pm before encountering severe weather-related turbulence during its descent.
The plane landed about 3,800 feet down the 9,000-foot Runway 24L – and was unable to stop in time.
Delta email
“The most difficult (part) was when the plane was rolling…we thought we would die,” passenger Oliver Dubois had recalled, according to CBC.
On Monday, another plane crashed and flipped over and every one on board survived.
Several things went right when the passenger jet, with 80 people on board, landing at a wintry Toronto airport lost its wings and flipped over with no loss of life, according to aviation experts reviewing preliminary information.
Investigators will try to sort out what happened to the Delta Airlines CRJ-900 as it arrived from Minneapolis and touched down at Toronto Pearson International Airport at 2.15 pm.
It’s possible the plane bounced and pilots lost control, said Greg Feith, former senior air safety investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
“The good thing is … both the wings were shed,” he said. “That usually takes up a lot of the major impact forces. And because the tube, the fuselage tube, stayed intact, that’s what enhanced the survivability for all these people, even though there was a small fire that did break out.”
The integrity of the fuselage is a testament to advances in airplane engineering, Feith added.
“We’ve learned a lot of lessons from history,” he said.
Also probably helping the outcome was that jet fuel was dispersed when the wings detached, Feith noted.
He praised passengers and the flight crew for the orderly evacuation of the upside-down aircraft.
The fact that all 80 people aboard the plane survived is amazing, retired commercial pilots Michael Coffield and Richard Levy agreed.− New York Post/The Hill
Mathew Masinge