Lufthansa 737 down...

[Staiduk]

Crap - a Lufthansa 737 just skidded off the runway at Pearson. 200 passengers aboard; it's currently on fire. No other info at this time.

Heavy thunderstorms; but they don't know exactly how much the weather had to do with the accident.

[jrpilot]

What was a Lufthansa 737 doing in Toronto?

Sad News, looks pretty bad.

[Craig.]

Its going to be bigger than a 737.
I hope there are survivors, the scene looks bad though

[Staiduk]

Correction:
Now they're saying it's an Air France A-340. Sorry about that.

So far as they know at the moment; it was landing at 24L and ran off the end. There's a large broken area a couple hundred meters off the end and the aircraft went into it.

No words on casualties or survivors - apparently there was a few minutes before the fire broke out so they might've got out OK but let's hold our breath.

I'm wondering about the cause of course - hydroplaning likely, but I recall a couple of accidents where the crew didn't arm the spoilers; with essentially the same result.

[jrpilot]

What makes me mad is the television people.  Like Wolf Blitzer, this guy thinks he knows aviation in and out.  He is saying things like "Is it possible that the pilots couldn't see the runway (*IDEA* Ever heard of ILS?) and is it possible that the pilots got tired and wrecked".....

[Craig.]

[quote]What makes me mad is the television people.

[RHeite]

First look, it almost looked like a 737. Alot of networks made that mistake.

I don't think anyone has a crystal clear picture.  MSNBC is reporting they came in on the landing, couldn't brake - wet rwy or what not, went off the runway and into a revean, with the gear collapsing.

Just saw on the scroller, two busloads of survivors reported by Toronto Radio.

[Staiduk]

[quote]What makes me mad is the television people.

[Triple_7]

Well I keep hearing on CNN that a plane that size can hold up to 305 passengers...Earlier there was supposidly an AF official in Montreal saying there was around 290 on board...I'm just going to guess that they are guessing

Found this site a long time ago...If its correct the max pax could have been 276...
http://www.seatguru.com/airlines/Air_Fr ... s_A340.php

Now they say everyone made it off...Probably wont know anything deffinate till tommarow...

Deffinatly a surprise when I saw that on TV while surfing :-/