Crash at Pearson...

[bcradio]

Apparently an A340 went off the runway at Pearson, big fire.

 

[1080iAddict]

Any live web scanner feeds?

 

[Jay911]

CTV News has the MTO video feed from Highway 401 trained on the scene. A witness from a nearby aviation company is reporting that the plane was struck by lightning on the fuselage and subsequently overran the end of 24L and ended up in Etobicoke Creek. CTV is reporting 291 people on board Air France flight 358 from Paris to Toronto and some 60 people have successfully escaped the crash/fire.

EDIT: CTV reports some pax and/or crew made it on foot to the edge of the 401 where people picked them up and transported them to hospital.

Also note this is NOT the 4-alarm fire listed on Toronto Fire's CAD system ( http://www.city.toronto.on.ca/fire/cadinfo/livecad.htm ); the call on CAD is aross the other side of the city. This call is presumably being handled by crews not shown on the live CAD feed (i.e. airport crews).

 

[SCPD]

CNN is now using CTV'S feed as well for our friends to the south.

 

[Jay911]

Here's some data I'm gathering regarding this..

According to the Texas A&M Weather Page (which collects weather reports from airports as they are generated), here's the Toronto airport weather reports from the appropriate time.. the aircraft was due at 04:07 PM EDT, according to posts on airliners.net:

The weather observed at TORONTO/PEARSON, OT (CYYZ) at 04:00 PM EDT was:
  The skies were mostly cloudy.
  The weather reported was heavy thunder rain.
  Temperature: 73F ( 23C)  Dewpoint:  72F ( 22C)  Relative Humidity:  94%
  Winds from the WNW(290 degs) at 13 mph.
  Altimeter:30.02 inches of mercury.
  The prevailing visibility was 4 miles.

The weather observed at TORONTO/PEARSON, OT (CYYZ) at 04:04 PM EDT was:
  The skies were cloudy.
  The weather reported was heavy thunder rain.
  No temperature reported.  No dewpoint reported.  No relative humidity reported.
  Winds from the NNW(340 degs) at 28 mph.
  The prevailing visibility was 1.25 miles.

Take note of the wind speed and direction (and changes in such) and the visibility. The plane was landing on runway 24L which, for those unfamiliar with airport lingo, is the left runway of two that are lined up for 240 degrees. Due west is 270 degrees.

The wind was coming from 290 at 4PM, a 50 degree angle pushing on the right front of the plane, and 4 minutes later, turned around to come from almost due north (340), at virtually a 90 degree angle to the side of the plane, and doubled in speed. This is not the best conditions to try to land a plane in!

A passenger is on CTV right now, having escaped from the last row of the tail, and reports the power shut off upon hitting the ground and the plane skidded unpowered into the ravine.

 

[gopherit]

Crash at Pearson

Listening right now to Peel Regional, Lots of Action on on the scanner, got it set for SRC, with no Delay, getting to cover it all. Everybody is involved with this Plane Crash.

 

[gopherit]

Crash at Pearson Update

Just heard that there was 297 passengers and a crew of 12 onboard.
God Bless them. there are no fatality's reported.

 

[seamusg]

On CNN they showed CBC footage of an EMS unit that looked liked a bus, What is it?

 

[I_10_92]

Its a bus.

http://www.city.toronto.on.ca/ems/operations/esu.htm

 

[Jammin_Jay]

With the Looks of the Plane Crash and the smoke. I Believe I was seeing that off of an MTO hwy 401 traffic cam. No-one was hurt , hard to believe. I must say a plane filled with almost 300 people and burst into flames within minutes, thank God no-one was killed.

 

[mciupa]

I had one ear to the scanner and the other listening to the TV coverage
(between 4:30 and 6:30 pm EDT)

Most activity I heard was on this system :

http://www.radioreference.com/modules.php?name=TRSDB&sid=1573

and the talk groups that I noted were:

36016 GTAA-1 Fire Training/Ops 1
36048 GTAA-2 Fire Training/Ops 2
36080 GTAA-3 Command Dispatch
36112 GTAA-4 Incident Tactical Channel 1
592- PRPD - Tac Clear *** Canine Units were on this TG looking for passengers under Hwy. 401 as there had been reports of people dispersing from the scene and unaccounted for.

1424 PIA - Dispatch ( Airport Division)

 

[mikewazowski]

Also note this is NOT the 4-alarm fire listed on Toronto Fire's CAD system ( http://www.city.toronto.on.ca/fire/cadinfo/livecad.htm ); the call on CAD is aross the other side of the city. This call is presumably being handled by crews not shown on the live CAD feed (i.e. airport crews).

Pearson is actually located in Mississauga not Toronto.

Airport fire crews and Mississauga FS handled the call with mutual aid from surrounding areas.

 

[Jay911]

Pearson is actually located in Mississauga not Toronto.

Airport fire crews and Mississauga FS handled the call with mutual aid from surrounding areas.

Of course, my bad.

 

[mikewazowski]

You're just lucky Hazel McCallion didn't see your post. She's pretty vocal when defending her city.

:lol:

 

[Jay911]

Hey, I was born in Scarborough and grew up in Pickering. Anything west of Kennedy was in Toronto to me. Seriously, though, I never got that far west unless I was going to the airport, and I wasn't a scanner hobbyist or anything of the sort until after I moved to Calgary - unless you count the single channel crystal "scanner" I had to hear my dad and his crews on Pickering Fire Dept.