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Only 24 people received minor injuries and no one was killed when an Air France passenger jet overshot the runway and caught fire as it was trying to land at Pearson Airport in Canada's biggest city of Toronto Tuesday afternoon.
All 297 passengers and 12 crew members of Flight 358 traveling from Paris to Toronto survived the ordeal, officials said.
"According to our current information and the Air France chief there, there are no casualties," an Air France spokesperson said.
Steve Shaw, vice-president of corporate affairs for the Greater Toronto Airport Authority, also confirmed there are no known fatalities during a briefing.
Everyone on board the A-340 jet, which is capable of carrying 350 passengers, was able to get off the plane before it caught fire, Shaw said.
Some of the injured passengers had been sent to area hospitals, while others simply received spot treatment before going back home. A Canadian TV report said two babies, one 7 months and the other 1 year old, were among the injured.
The airbus-340 skidded off Runway 24 Left, an east-west runway laid out parallel to one of Toronto's busiest roads, Highway 401. It ended up in the Etobicoke Creek ravine, a small valley at the far west end of the airport.
The plane broke apart, with its fuselage tipped down and its tail in the air. Live television pictures showed smoke billowing from the aircraft in a wooded area near Highway 401. A section of the plane's wing was seen jutting from the trees.
The officials could not confirm the reason for the accident so far. But Glenn Schiller, a passenger in another plane who watched the scene unfolding, said the aircraft lost control when it was landing among vicious thunderstorm and torrential rain.
Thunderstorms could lead to wind shear -- the sudden, dangerous air currents that can push an aircraft into the ground during takeoff and landing.
Severe storms in the area at the time of the accident had grounded most operations at the airport.
The airport has been closed to other traffic after the accident, with planes diverted to other airports in Hamilton and Ottawa, officials said.
The federal Transportation Safety Board was preparing to send a team of investigators to Pearson as fire teams and rescuers were still busy with their work.
The most serious plane crash at Pearson, Canada's busiest airport, happened more than 30 years ago. In 1970 an Air Canada DC-8 jet, en route from Montreal to Los Angeles, went down north of the airport, killing all 109 people aboard.
The last major jumbo jet crash in North America was on Nov. 12,2001, when American Airlines Flight 587 lost part of its tail and plummeted into a New York City neighbourhood, killing 265 people.
(Xinhua News Agency August 3, 2005)
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