Halifax: Air Canada AC624 touched down 335 metres short of runway

[Gabriella Laurence 301887]

I hope none of you were on that plane!



[URL="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/air-canada-ac624-touched-down-335-metres-short-of-runway-tsb-says-1.3013979"]News link[/URL]

"A Transportation Safety Board investigator said [B]Air Canada Flight 624[/B] passengers were â??pretty luckyâ? that the Sunday morning crash wasnâ??t more serious after the plane touched down more than 300 metres short of a Halifax runway and smashed through an antenna array before finally skidding to a stop.

Mike Cunningham, a regional air investigation coordinator with the TSB, said during an evening press briefing that the cockpit voice recorder and data recorder have been recovered and sent to Ottawa so preliminary analysis can begin as soon as possible.

Investigators from other parts of Canada and France, as well representatives from the airplane's manufacturer Airbus, are being brought in to assist.

â??It's a very great concern to us and we will be putting our maximum effort into determining what happened â?¦ with the intention of advancing safety,â? Cunningham said.

After crashing, the Airbus A320 slid another 335 metres down the runway at Halifax Stanfield International Airport. [B]Twenty-three people on board were taken to hospital, none with critical injuries[/B], airport officials said.

[B]The plane was travelling from Toronto to Halifax carrying 133 passengers and five crew members.[/B]

The aircraft lost all its landing gear when it made contact with the antenna array, Cunningham said. The plane's nose cone and an engine detached and a wing was severely damaged. The current goal is â??site documentationâ? and a full complement of up to 15 investigators are expected at the airport tomorrow morning, he said.

Cunningham stressed itâ??s too early to draw any conclusions about what led to the accident. Itâ??s a complex investigation and it takes time to get to the â??underlying factors.â?

The plane also damaged power lines during the crash, cutting off electricity to the airport for more than an hour."


[B][URL="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/air-canada-ac624-touched-down-335-metres-short-of-runway-tsb-says-1.3013979"]Read more...[/URL][/B]