| Miraculous Escape for all 309 in Toronto Plane Crash |
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Toronto, Canada(24x7Updates) -- All 309 people on board Air France Flight 358 from Paris which overshot the runway at Toronto’s International Airport miraculously survived by jumping to safety, moments before the plane went into flames.
Twenty-four people suffered minor injuries in the crash landing. This is the first time an Airbus A340 has crashed in its 13 years of commercial service.
"They immediately opened the side of the plane where they couldn’t see any flames, and then they told us to jump," a passenger said.
"We managed to jump and run in the field," he said. "There was a bit of fire everywhere."
The flight crew reacted quickly to open emergency doors despite the surprise, he said.
Several area hospitals were on high alert as they prepared for an onslaught of injuries. One nine-month-old baby was taken to Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children, but there was no word on the state of the baby’s injuries.
Flames and black smoke could be seen shooting from the downed plane’s broken fuselage, a wingtip jutting above the trees, moments after it crashed at the end of the runway amid lightning strikes and driving rain at 4:03 p.m.
Black smoke billowed across the landscape, obscuring the view for passing drivers as the acrid smell of burning jet fuel hung heavy in the air, even several kilometres away.
A row of emergency vehicles lined up behind the wreck, and a fire truck sprayed the flames with water. A government transportation highway camera recorded the burning plane, and the footage was broadcast live on television in Canada and the United States.
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 emerged from the wreckage, but it wasn’t clear whether it was from an explosion.
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