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An Air France Airbus burst into flames after overshooting the runway while landing at Toronto's Pearson International Airport in a storm on Tuesday, but all 309 passengers and crew survived.
Steve Shaw of the Greater Toronto Airport Authority said there were "no known fatalities" among the 297 passengers and 12 crew aboard the packed plane. All aboard were evacuated before the fire took hold, he said.
Witnesses said the plane may have been hit by lightning as it came into land and crashed into a gully. Officials said the airport had been under a "red alert" because of the danger of lightning.
Survivors said they "ran like crazy" from the wreckage.
"We were running really fast to get out of there," Olivier Dubos said on CNN.
Canadian television quoted police as saying that the pilot and a number of passengers been taken to hospital. A Canadian reporter said two busloads of passengers were taken into downtown Toronto from the crash site. CBC Radio said 14 people had been treated for minor injuries
An Air France ticket agent said the plane was its AF358 flight from Paris to Toronto, an Airbus A340.
"An Air France plane landing on runway 2-4 went off the end of the runway in the area of Convair Drive and the 401 area in Mississauga," Peel police Sgt. Glyn Griffiths said.
Witnesses told Canadian television stations that the plane, had apparently skidded off the runway after landing amid lightning and rain.
Debbi Wilkes, who was driving in a car on a highway alongside the airport, said it was "pouring rain" and "pelting with hail" at the time.
"We saw a bolt of lightning come down and hit something," she said.
Huge clouds of black smoke and orange flames billowed from the fuselage. Firefighters sprayed foam over the wreckage to damp down the flames.
The plane was lying off the end of a runway close to a main traffic artery. Some passengers were said by local television to have made their way to the highway from where they were taken to hospital.
Afternoon rush hour traffic quickly clogged up along the highway, Canada's busiest, as vehicles passed only a few yards from the crash site.
Witness Corey Marx, who was standing by the highway watching planes land at the airport, told CNN: "It was about 4 o'clock. It was getting really dark. All of a sudden lightning was happening. A lot of rain was coming down. I didn't see the size of the plane but it was an Air France plane."
"It came in on the runway, everything looked good. Sounded good. Hit the runway nice and all of a sudden we heard its engines backing up."
Marx said rescue workers got to the plane within about 40 or 50 seconds.
Air France's Web site showed that flight 358 left Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris and was due to arrive at Pearson's terminal 3 on Tuesday afternoon.
Toronto airport has been closed to other traffic, with planes diverted to Ottawa and other nearby airports.
(China Daily August 3, 2005)
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