Canadian Plane Crash

[Shaun]

There's been a crash at Toronto airport in Canada, an Air France A340 with ~200 people on it. It's a Paris to Toronto flight.

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0...191024,00.html

[Roy MM]

One disaster after another. terrible.

[Shaun]

Sky News are now reporting that Associated Press are reporting seeing some of the survivors huddled under a bridge. The news channels really have got footage very quickly.

[Gareth]

Very sad indeed. Let's hope any fatalities are kept to a minimum.

Flight AF358 was at the end of its flight from the French capital Paris to Toronto when it crashed; witnesses said it had been hit by lighting.

When lightening hits a plane, there's not much a pilot can do.

[AndrewJ]

True but this is a new airbus isn't it not? surely they are protected from lightning?

[Wicked_and_Crazy]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4740381.stm

[AndrewJ]

Don't them planes have IFR in case of bad visibility.

[Wicked_and_Crazy]

according to what ive just seen on sky news they are saying that ALL passengers have survived.

[AndrewJ]

That is good but I am sure that them planes have technology to enable them to fly without visibility.

[Xaccers]

To my knowledge, planes can handle being struck by normal lightening, as they're a giant faraday cage (same as your car, it's not the rubber tyres that protect you, even CSI got that wrong tsk) so the electricity just shoots through the metal shell along the line of least resistance.
There are however "super" lightening bolts, which flash back up from the ground.
Saw a program about them, where a glider was struck by one and the pin that holds the wings together which can cope with normal lightening strikes was so bent and twisted from the heat of a super strike that it let the wings fall off!
Also, I think planes can basically land themselves (ILS and all that) but very few pilots (or even airlines) would be happy letting the computer take control, but I'm not 100% on this

[BBKing]

That is good but I am sure that them planes have technology to enable them to fly without visibility.

Indeed they do - the plane got on the ground ok, so this sounds much more like a weather related crash than anything else, which is often a problem in North America, where you get some serious weather.

Another thing modern planes are good for is crash survivability, of course, and from what I've seen on www.airdisaster.com (popups galore unfortunately) it seems the plane stayed intact and the fire was limited. Lucky, that.

It's the first A340 to crash, barring a fire on another Air France one in a hangar.

[AndrewJ]

It is a damn shame I remember a program I think on Discovery Wings, which showed a Airbus I think the A380, landing with the computer aided program, was amazing the pilot was sat feet up reading a newspaper and the plane did all the work itself and perfectly.

[Ramrod]

All aboard survive according to the BBC

An Air France plane has skidded off a runway and burst in flames at Toronto's Pearson airport, but all 309 people aboard survived, officials say.

They said 14 people aboard the Airbus A340 were treated for minor injuries.

[SMHarman]

Originally Posted by Saxodriver

It is a damn shame I remember a program I think on Discovery Wings, which showed a Airbus I think the A380, landing with the computer aided program, was amazing the pilot was sat feet up reading a newspaper and the plane did all the work itself and perfectly.

This is all down to the aircraft and the airport. The technology to do this is pretty old, the most up to date version is CATIIIB/C autoland. The B is for blind, CAT IIIb requires a runway visibility range of 150 feet at a decision height of zero feet, and CAT IIIc relies completely on instrumentation and has no ceiling or runway visibility range minima. For B the pilot basically has to look out the window, confirm that there is a runway beneath them and press a button for the plane to complete the approach.

[Halcyon]

I'm just glad that everyone got out safely.
IMO the plane should not have been given clearence to land. in this weather.