ALL 297 passengers and 12 crew escaped with their lives yesterday when a passenger plane overshot a runway and burst into flames after trying to land during a thunderstorm.
The miracle escape from the Air France aircraft happened after it skidded off a runway while landing at Toronto's Pearson International Airport.
Black smoke billowed into the air as the wreck burned, with some passengers having to throw themselves off the plane to safety. But the only casualties were 14 people who were taken to hospital with minor injuries.
Witnesses said a major catastrophe was averted because the plane came to a halt in a gully just yards away from Canada's busiest motorway - Highway 401 - which was full of rush- hour traffic at 4pm local time.
Police said the plane was an Air France Airbus A340 from Paris that was trying to land when it ran into trouble and overshot the runway by 200 metres.
There was a storm with lightning and strong wind in the area at the time, prompting a "red alert", meaning planes cannot be landed with help from marshals on the ground.
AM 680, an all-news station, reported live from the scene that there were two explosions on the plane.
Steve Shaw, a spokesman for the Greater Toronto Airport Authority, praised the speed of rescue workers in preventing a more serious tragedy.
He said: "Most of the passengers were able to escape before the fire broke out. This airport has safety and security procedures which we hope never happen but the fact the passengers were safely evacuated shows we passed the test. The fire has now been contained and is under control."
A man who identified himself as a survivor, Olivier Dubos, told CTV the plane was plunged into darkness a minute before the landing. "It was scary - really, really scary. No-one knew whether the plane would blow up and the lights went out just before we landed."
He said some passengers scrambled on to nearby Highway 401, where cars stopped, picked them up and took them to the airport. Two busloads of passengers were taken to an airport medical centre.
Another passenger, Roel Bramar, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation: "I saw lightning. Maybe the plane had already been hit by lightning, because just as we landed the lights went off."
He added: "I got the idea the pilot wanted to lower the plane as soon as possible because there was such a rough storm."
A row of emergency vehicles lined up behind the wreck and a fire truck sprayed the flames with water and special foam.
A portion of the plane's wing could be seen jutting from the trees as smoke and flames poured from the middle of its broken fuselage.
At one point, another huge plume of smoke billowed from the wreckage, but it was not clear if it was from an explosion.
The flaming wreckage was close enough to the highway that drivers could clearly see the wreck, and some cars and trucks stopped on the roadway.
The last big jet crash in North America was on November 12, 2001, when American Airlines Flight 587 lost part of its tail and plummeted into a New York City neighbourhood, killing 265 people. Safety investigators concluded that the crash was caused by the pilot moving the rudder too aggressively.
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Flight AF358 left Paris's Charles de Gaulle airport at 1:32 local time and was due to arrive in Toronto at 4:12 p.m.
on Tuesday August 2nd, but the plane made a crash landing that nearly ended up on Canada's busiest highway.