UPDATE: letter from a passenger aboard that flight, [received February 18, 2006]:
"Hello Sir:
I just wanted to write you and thank you for all the support your site has given last year. To update you on what's happened so far, the Transport Safety Board has just sent questionnaires which we had to complete. Meanwhile, Air France has been offering settlements to individuals of around C$11,000 [Canadian dollars]-- one time off for all luggage loss, injures, emotional, etc. However, as you know the Air Transat case set a precedent for C$12,500 and was less severe than the Air France accident by a major level. One passenger I know of from the the plane is still seeing a physiotherapist even today. Her jaws apparently are locked and it's due to the clinching of her teeth when she has nightmares at night about the plane crash. I really feel sorry for her..."
==================
original website from summertime crash period here:
"If I can get back to Paris with a bicycle, I would go back that way," Poorsattar, who was born in Iran, joked.
Flight 358, Air France, crash lands at Pearson International Airport in August 2005, with 309 people on board, everyone gets out okay, safe. Safe? Well, they all survived, yes, and thank their lucky stars, but one thing the news media has not mentioned in depth is the amount and degree of PTSD's that will emerge: post-traumatic stress disorders.
Many of the passengers and some of the crew will find that they will experience post-traumatic stress disorders of various kinds, panic attacks, nightmares, fear of flying phobias, fear of heights, claustrophobia, etc., following the ordeal they survived. SOme will feel that they are living on borrowed time, and they will change the way they live their lives. Some will become more religious, some less religious. Many willl experience PTSD for the rest of their lives, and there will be lawsuits, yes, lawsuits, for "mental stress" endured in the crash landing and in the aftermath of their escape from the plane. HUGE LAWSUITS, worth millions of dollars. AIR FRANCE will be paying for this very stupid misake (trying to land in a fierce thunderstorm with lightning all around the airport, red alert, when in fact, the plane had enough fuel to fly to Montreal or Detroit or some safer place) of trying to land in red alert storm. Millions, billions of Canadian dollars. French francs.
Let's look into this a bit:
No complete passenger list has be released, but authorities released a partial list based on their nationality. Among the passengers were:
101 French citizens, 104 Canadians, 19 Italians,
14 Americans, 8 Indians and 7 British citizens.
[WERE YOU ON THIS FLIGHT? Contact me by confidential email at this email address:
reporter.bloom [AT] gmail DOT com
I am an aviation reporter who is also a survivor of an airplane "near-death" accident, a midair fire that was almost fatal, but fortunately we all survived. However, I know firsthand the problems that PTSD can cause, in one's life, in one's career, in one's future travel plans. In my case, I do not fly and have not flown since 1983 when the accident occurred. I never sued anyone and never received a penny in compensation for the ordeal we went through on that ill-fated flight. I hope all goes well for everyone on ill-fated Flight 357, but I know there will be problems. Some big problems.]
*Schiavo, author of the book "Flying Blind, Flying Safe," urged the passengers to move quickly, as the Warsaw Convention, which regulates liability for international airlines, has strict deadlines. Post-traumatic stress syndrome [PTSD] and other psychological trauma often don't hit patients for months, sometimes even years, she said. Airlines have been known to then ask why those passengers did not seek help immediately after the crash.
Among the passengers were:
*Mitra Gopaul, returning from Israel, where he worked for the Bahai World Center as a database administrator. "I'm still wondering why I had to go through this, if there is a godly reason," said Gopaul, who said his 20-year-old daughter was riding a bus along nearby Highway 401 and witnessed the crash. "I have to figure out in my personal life why I had to go through that."
*JoAnn Cordary Bundock, a vice president for Marriott International Inc., said she is reluctant to get involved in 358 litigation, but may not have a choice. "We need compensation that is fair and just, and if it comes to the point of having to sue them because they're not doing what they're supposed to do, then I will do that." She is dreading her flight to Seoul next Tuesday for a business meeting, not because she fears a crash, but because she does not know how she will react to flying. "I want to do my job; I like my job and I can't do my job without traveling," said Bundock, an American who lives in Fort Lauderdale and Toronto and racks up some 25,000 frequent flyer miles a year. "I don't know how this is going to affect me on this trip, or in six trips down the road. I am quite concerned because this is my livelihood."
Dennis Lewis, British/Canadian national returning from job in UAE to visit family and friends in Toronto for five days and then scheduled to fly back to the Middle East
Gwen Dunlop, who was returning from a vacation in France
Olivier Dubois, quoted in many AP news stories
Ahmed Alawata
*Eddie Ho, 19, a college student from South Africa: "The first week, I was plagued by nightmares, difficulty in sleeping, loss of appetite and constant flashbacks," said Ho, who says he's uncomfortable with the lawsuit, but feels compelled to join. "People say, `You're going to get tons of money,' but I don't see it that way. It's such a pain and I want my old life back. I wish it had never happened, I really do. It's uncontrollable and it's a psychological disaster."
Johnny Abedrabbo, a 32-year-old economist,
Stephanie Paquin, a 17-year-old Woodbridge, Ontario, returning from a student exchange in France
Martine Chrocca,
Veronica Laudes, a Toronto resident who was in Paris on business,
Maria Cojocaru, a resident of North York, was travelling from Paris with her seven-year-old daughter and her three-year-old son, after visiting family in Romania.
Dominique Pajot, 54, a Frenchman flying on business
Samantha Todd, a 16-year-old Toronto high school student
Gilles Medioni, a French journalist [Let's see what this journalist writes later!]
Lisa Popow, 15, a Canadian student
Aurélie Durel, 17, a French exchange student
Rashmi Bhawsar, 27, flying with her four-year-old son while immigrating from India
Sonia Tempestini, 19,
MORVARID Poorsattar, from Iran
Bastien Massol
[QUOTE: "I have only one thing to tell them, Air France: I think it's not fair," Cojocaru said. "I thought they would try, you know, to comfort us."] She said this after telling a reporter that Air France did not help much in the terminal after the crash. Another passenger said all Air France offered was US$300 in compensation for her lost items, such as cellphone, computer, baggage, jewelry, everything she had in the cargo hold...)
THE GREAT ESCAPE
Survival instinct took over passengers, experts say
ByCAROLYN ABRAHAM
August 4, 2005
MEDICAL REPORTER; With reports from Katie Rook and Joe Friesen
A primeval, and sometimes ugly, survival instinct swept over some ofthe desperate passengers of Air France Flight 358 when they foundthemselves trapped in the burning plane that skidded off a Torontorunway Tuesday.It was for a time, as several passengers described it, everyone forhimself or herself.Stephanie Paquin, a 17-year-old returning from a student exchange inFrance, said "people were just pushing. They didn't care about anyoneelse." After fleeing through the emergency exits, "everyone wastrampling everyone."Johnny Abedrabbo, a 32-year-old economist, was also struck by the"pushing and shoving" as the first wave of panic set in among hisfellow passengers.AdvertisementsNot everyone turned aggressive in their bid to flee the danger,however. Some were helpful, such as the stranger who pulled Ms. Paquinout of the ravine where the plane ended its slide.But before the plane's emergency exits popped open, the range ofemotions that played out in the crowded aisle of the Airbus A-340 wasa primitive one.Psychologists who study human behaviour under traumatic conditions saythese involuntary survival responses have evolved with us from theearliest days of life on the planet."We have a bunch of primitive reflexes in which we exhibit behaviourlike animals in certain situations," said Steven Taylor, a professorof psychiatry at the University of British Columbia, whose researchfocuses on trauma and anxiety.As Neil Rector, psychologist and head of the anxiety-disorders clinicat Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, put it, "We arehard-wired to seek survival."Generally, Dr. Taylor said, a person can experience four states ofresponse to trauma or a progression of these states.The first is a mode of hypervigilance, where "like a rabbit beinghunted by a dog and hiding in the bush," a person remains very quietand still, absorbing visual cues and scanning the perimeter for anescape route.The second stage involves the urge to flee, followed by the instinctto physically overcome whatever obstacles prevent the escape, commonlyknown as the fight-or-flight response.It is during this third state that people can seem to lose their senseof compassion, Dr. Taylor said, noting this may help explaintemporarily trapped passengers who push and shove as panic sets in.Often people will "later feel embarrassed" for their behaviour.But Dr. Rector pointed out these are automatic reactions. One featureof the fight-or-flight response "is to become myopically focused onthe threat at the expense of other elements of the environment. . . .The instinct for survival overrides the hierarchy of social niceties."The fourth stage, Dr. Taylor said, is "tonic immobility," where aperson might seem to freeze up and later describe the experiencesaying, " 'I couldn't move' . . . They would be just standing thereuntil they were grabbed by someone saying, 'Come on, we've got to getout of here.' "To some extent, Dr. Taylor said, the brain shuts itself down duringtrauma as a protective mechanism, or narrows the ability to focus.This may help explain why some passengers decided to stop to collecttheir carry-on luggage before fleeing the burning aircraft.Dr. Rector noted that those passengers who collected their bags arealso examples of the fact that not everyone perceives danger in thesame way. "Some people perceived less of a threat, and so felt therewas more time to leave in an orderly way."Ms. Paquin, who stopped to gather her bags, was among those who didnot realize the gravity of the situation. The Woodbridge, Ont.,student was surprised by the shouting and panicking of others.Not until she was off the plane, seeing it blazing and turned on itsside, did she think, "Oh my God, I didn't know it was that serious at all."
"Happy to be alive"
Passengers of Flight 358 recount tense moments after landing
by VIVIAN SONG and CHRIS DOUCETTE, reporters
TORONTO SUN
When Air France flight 358 first landed in Toronto after being warned of lightning strikes in the area, the passengers broke into applause.
"We landed and it seemed fine at first, so we all started clapping until all of a sudden we heard this shaking on the aircraft," economist Johnny Abedrabbo, 32, said.
"It just kind of took a nosedive on the runway and swerved to the left."
"We bounced pretty hard," passenger Lauren Langille, 16.
The plane had veered off the runway, but the pilots came on the intercom soon after to reassure passengers that everything was safe and sound, several told The Sun last night at a hotel near the airport.
The first sign of trouble came earlier when the plane aborted a landing and went around for a second attempt.
"The weather is too hard so the captain is going around," passenger Ahmed Alawata recalled.
About a minute before the plane landed, as it approached Pearson the second time, the lights in the cabin went out, said passenger Olivier Dubois. "Just before touching ground, it was all black in the plane, there was no more light, nothing."
Abedrabbo said he heard a sound like a tire blowing out, and the plane began to shimmy and swerve. And that's when he noticed the fire.
"The tire blew up, and as soon as it swerved and stopped, we saw the left engine just basically shoot up in flames, red flames," Abedrabbo said.
Norbert Boudreau of Ottawa said measured panic soon spread throughout the darkened plane.
"Then two minutes later, a stewardess yells out that there was a fire and we had to evacuate at the back," he said.
Langille described how acrid black smoke soon filled the cabin.
"I saw a lot of orange flame. Fire was everywhere and we started to evacuate," she said.
Passengers scrambled out emergency exits and slid down inflatable chutes.
"We slid on our asses to get out and ran up to the street where there was a truck waiting for us," Boudreau said.
Some, like 16-year-old Samantha Todd of Toronto, lost their shoes as they climbed through mud, bushes and brambles to safety. "I wasn't thinking about anything except getting out of the plane," she said.
"There was the fear of the explosion, because we were all trying to go up a hill that was all mud," said Gwen Dunlop, who was returning from a vacation in France.
"We had lost our shoes, we were just scrambling, and there was people with children. The rain was just coming down, and the wind and the lightning. We were just thrown into the weather and thrown into everything."
Dunlop said the evacuation was anything but orderly. "There were people climbing over seats to get out." He said he and other passengers ran through grass as tall as a metre high to the busy Hwy. 401, fearing the plane would explode at any moment.
"Finally we hit a road, where trucks and cars had stopped and people let them into their vehicles," he said.
• Full crash coverage
SHARE YOUR NEAR-MISS, NEAR-CRASH SCARY AIRPLANE STORIES:
"It was a miracle that no one was killed" in yesterday's crash of an Air France Airbus at Pearson airport, says Ontario's deputy chief coroner.
But it's not the first time that an airline disaster has been averted.
Have you ever had a near-miss while flying? Did yesterday's crash at Pearson bring back memories of your own close-call flying experience?
Send your stories by e-mail to online@tor.sunpub.com -- including your full name and city -- and we may publish a selection of your comments online or in the print version of the Sun.
Air France crash probe starts amid dispute over landing
Michel Comte
AFP
August 5, 2005
MIRACLE: Officials view the wreckage of Air France flight 358 as it lies in a gully off the end of the runway in Toronto on August 3. Canadian aircraft investigators said that they are looking at weather as one possible cause of the 'miracle' Toronto plane crash, in which all 309 passengers and crew walked away from the fiery remains of the Airbus A340.(REUTERS)
TORONTO -- An Air France jet that crashed at a Toronto airport was working normally as it arrived, Canadian investigators said on Thursday, but a dispute erupted over who approved the landing during a storm. Canadian authorities and Air France sought to deflect responsibility on who approved the landing while Toronto Pearson International Airport was on "red alert" because of a lightning storm. The Airbus A340 jet hurtled off the runway and ended up in a gully in flames. But all of the 297 passengers and 12 crew survived in what Canada's Transport Minister Jean Lapierre said was a "miracle". Crash investigators have found the so-called black box flight recorders and are studying the information. They said that the jet appeared headed for a safe landing before it skidded off the end of the runway. "The initial landing appeared very normal," said Real Levasseur, lead investigator for the Canadian transportation safety agency. "There was no emergency declared from the part of the air crew and there didn't seem to be anything wrong with the aircraft condition and its safety as it was approaching to land." At least three of four engine thrust reversers deployed during landing, which means, "the crew were doing what they were supposed to do to slow the aircraft down after landing". The fourth thruster was too badly damaged to tell whether it had been working, Levasseur said. He noted that a strong tail wind might have given the plane a push as it sped along the runway. Media reports have highlighted other theories. Passengers and witnesses have said that the jet was hit by lightning as it descended. Experts have also said that it could have aquaplaned because of the torrential rain in the area. Pearson airport had earlier stopped landings and departures because of the storm, which investigators have already said probably played a key role in the accident. Investigators have questioned the copilot who was at the controls, but they gave no details. The decision to land has already become a controversy. Air France chairman Jean-Cyril Spinetta indicated that it was the control tower that decided the Airbus could come down in a storm, while Canadian transport minister Lapierre said that it had been the pilot's decision to land. "There is no recommendation that can force a plane to land," Lapierre told Radio-Canada television late on Wednesday. "The only person who makes a decision to land is the pilot, the commander. And as a result, he has full responsibility for that decision," Lapierre added. Spinetta, who is in Toronto heading an emergency team, seemed to blame airport authorities for allowing the landing. "Airport authorities apparently deemed conditions for landing difficult but still possible" despite the rain and wind, he told a news conference. "The Air France jet - I have personally confirmed this - had enough fuel left, if it had been necessary, to land at another airport," he said. Rescuers praised the copilot for taking a last look around the jet to assure no one had been trapped on board. The captain of the jet injured his back in the accident and investigators will not interview him until doctors give approval, Levasseur said. A flight attendant and 12 passengers were still in hospital, according to officials. Passengers Carla Sbrugnera and her husband Enrico Giacomuzzi Moore suffered the worst injuries in the crash. She fractured three vertebrae and he fractured one, doctors said. Randy Knipping, a doctor at Trillium Health Centre in Toronto who specializes in aviation-related injuries, said: "This is still a minor injury from the point of trauma. But when you get your back broken in three places, it's not minor from the point of view of the patient." The couple was sitting in the first row in first class at the front of the plane when it fell into a gully. Giacomuzzi Moore put his head between his legs and his knee was thrown up and broke his nose, Knipping said.
Family sues for 'severe' trauma
Kids now afraid to get into a car: Lawyer
By SARAH GREEN, TORONTO SUN
Air France probe focuses on landingSurvivor fears she'll never flySurvivors promised payoutFlyers: Airport fails guideines
FIVE MEMBERS of a Toronto family who were passengers on the Air France flight are planning to sue for damages for the injuries and trauma they suffered in the fiery crash.
Lawyer David Diamond, representing the family who asked not to be named, said the suit -- to be filed in coming weeks -- will likely ask for damages in the "tens of thousands" for each member of the family.
Diamond said the father injured his ankle and the three children, aged eight to 15, are traumatized by the ordeal, "swearing up and down they're not going to fly again."
One of the children is suffering from bad headaches and all three, who are having nightmares, will need therapy, he said.
"It's severe psychological trauma," Diamond said. "They're afraid to get into a car. It's pretty traumatic for them."
He said the parents are coping "pretty well" with the emotional aftermath.
The suit will possibly name Air France and the Greater Toronto Airport Authority, although no decision has been made, he said. It may become a class-action suit as more passengers come forward.
The family commends the swift evacuation of the Airbus with saving the lives of all 297 passengers and 12 crew members. "There wasn't the panic and mayhem that could have occurred," Diamond said.
Meanwhile, Toronto firm Will Barristers: Morin and Miller will hold an information session next Wednesday for Air France passengers with noted U.S. lawyer Mary Schiavo. She represents families of passengers on the hijacked Sept. 11 planes. nic and mayhem that could have occurred," Diamond said.
Meanwhile, Toronto firm Will Barristers: Morin and Miller will hold an information session next Wednesday for Air France passengers with noted U.S. lawyer Mary Schiavo. She represents families of passengers on the hijacked Sept. 11 planes.
"Hello Sir:
I just wanted to write you and thank you for all the support your site has given last year. To update you on what's happened so far, the Transport Safety Board has just sent questionnaires which we had to complete. Meanwhile, Air France has been offering settlements to individuals of around C$11,000 [Canadian dollars]-- one time off for all luggage loss, injures, emotional, etc. However, as you know the Air Transat case set a precedent for C$12,500 and was less severe than the Air France accident by a major level. One passenger I know of from the the plane is still seeing a physiotherapist even today. Her jaws apparently are locked and it's due to the clinching of her teeth when she has nightmares at night about the plane crash. I really feel sorry for her..."
==================
original website from summertime crash period here:
"If I can get back to Paris with a bicycle, I would go back that way," Poorsattar, who was born in Iran, joked.
Flight 358, Air France, crash lands at Pearson International Airport in August 2005, with 309 people on board, everyone gets out okay, safe. Safe? Well, they all survived, yes, and thank their lucky stars, but one thing the news media has not mentioned in depth is the amount and degree of PTSD's that will emerge: post-traumatic stress disorders.
Many of the passengers and some of the crew will find that they will experience post-traumatic stress disorders of various kinds, panic attacks, nightmares, fear of flying phobias, fear of heights, claustrophobia, etc., following the ordeal they survived. SOme will feel that they are living on borrowed time, and they will change the way they live their lives. Some will become more religious, some less religious. Many willl experience PTSD for the rest of their lives, and there will be lawsuits, yes, lawsuits, for "mental stress" endured in the crash landing and in the aftermath of their escape from the plane. HUGE LAWSUITS, worth millions of dollars. AIR FRANCE will be paying for this very stupid misake (trying to land in a fierce thunderstorm with lightning all around the airport, red alert, when in fact, the plane had enough fuel to fly to Montreal or Detroit or some safer place) of trying to land in red alert storm. Millions, billions of Canadian dollars. French francs.
Let's look into this a bit:
No complete passenger list has be released, but authorities released a partial list based on their nationality. Among the passengers were:
101 French citizens, 104 Canadians, 19 Italians,
14 Americans, 8 Indians and 7 British citizens.
[WERE YOU ON THIS FLIGHT? Contact me by confidential email at this email address:
reporter.bloom [AT] gmail DOT com
I am an aviation reporter who is also a survivor of an airplane "near-death" accident, a midair fire that was almost fatal, but fortunately we all survived. However, I know firsthand the problems that PTSD can cause, in one's life, in one's career, in one's future travel plans. In my case, I do not fly and have not flown since 1983 when the accident occurred. I never sued anyone and never received a penny in compensation for the ordeal we went through on that ill-fated flight. I hope all goes well for everyone on ill-fated Flight 357, but I know there will be problems. Some big problems.]
*Schiavo, author of the book "Flying Blind, Flying Safe," urged the passengers to move quickly, as the Warsaw Convention, which regulates liability for international airlines, has strict deadlines. Post-traumatic stress syndrome [PTSD] and other psychological trauma often don't hit patients for months, sometimes even years, she said. Airlines have been known to then ask why those passengers did not seek help immediately after the crash.
Among the passengers were:
*Mitra Gopaul, returning from Israel, where he worked for the Bahai World Center as a database administrator. "I'm still wondering why I had to go through this, if there is a godly reason," said Gopaul, who said his 20-year-old daughter was riding a bus along nearby Highway 401 and witnessed the crash. "I have to figure out in my personal life why I had to go through that."
*JoAnn Cordary Bundock, a vice president for Marriott International Inc., said she is reluctant to get involved in 358 litigation, but may not have a choice. "We need compensation that is fair and just, and if it comes to the point of having to sue them because they're not doing what they're supposed to do, then I will do that." She is dreading her flight to Seoul next Tuesday for a business meeting, not because she fears a crash, but because she does not know how she will react to flying. "I want to do my job; I like my job and I can't do my job without traveling," said Bundock, an American who lives in Fort Lauderdale and Toronto and racks up some 25,000 frequent flyer miles a year. "I don't know how this is going to affect me on this trip, or in six trips down the road. I am quite concerned because this is my livelihood."
Dennis Lewis, British/Canadian national returning from job in UAE to visit family and friends in Toronto for five days and then scheduled to fly back to the Middle East
Gwen Dunlop, who was returning from a vacation in France
Olivier Dubois, quoted in many AP news stories
Ahmed Alawata
*Eddie Ho, 19, a college student from South Africa: "The first week, I was plagued by nightmares, difficulty in sleeping, loss of appetite and constant flashbacks," said Ho, who says he's uncomfortable with the lawsuit, but feels compelled to join. "People say, `You're going to get tons of money,' but I don't see it that way. It's such a pain and I want my old life back. I wish it had never happened, I really do. It's uncontrollable and it's a psychological disaster."
Johnny Abedrabbo, a 32-year-old economist,
Stephanie Paquin, a 17-year-old Woodbridge, Ontario, returning from a student exchange in France
Martine Chrocca,
Veronica Laudes, a Toronto resident who was in Paris on business,
Maria Cojocaru, a resident of North York, was travelling from Paris with her seven-year-old daughter and her three-year-old son, after visiting family in Romania.
Dominique Pajot, 54, a Frenchman flying on business
Samantha Todd, a 16-year-old Toronto high school student
Gilles Medioni, a French journalist [Let's see what this journalist writes later!]
Lisa Popow, 15, a Canadian student
Aurélie Durel, 17, a French exchange student
Rashmi Bhawsar, 27, flying with her four-year-old son while immigrating from India
Sonia Tempestini, 19,
MORVARID Poorsattar, from Iran
Bastien Massol
[QUOTE: "I have only one thing to tell them, Air France: I think it's not fair," Cojocaru said. "I thought they would try, you know, to comfort us."] She said this after telling a reporter that Air France did not help much in the terminal after the crash. Another passenger said all Air France offered was US$300 in compensation for her lost items, such as cellphone, computer, baggage, jewelry, everything she had in the cargo hold...)
THE GREAT ESCAPE
Survival instinct took over passengers, experts say
ByCAROLYN ABRAHAM
August 4, 2005
MEDICAL REPORTER; With reports from Katie Rook and Joe Friesen
A primeval, and sometimes ugly, survival instinct swept over some ofthe desperate passengers of Air France Flight 358 when they foundthemselves trapped in the burning plane that skidded off a Torontorunway Tuesday.It was for a time, as several passengers described it, everyone forhimself or herself.Stephanie Paquin, a 17-year-old returning from a student exchange inFrance, said "people were just pushing. They didn't care about anyoneelse." After fleeing through the emergency exits, "everyone wastrampling everyone."Johnny Abedrabbo, a 32-year-old economist, was also struck by the"pushing and shoving" as the first wave of panic set in among hisfellow passengers.AdvertisementsNot everyone turned aggressive in their bid to flee the danger,however. Some were helpful, such as the stranger who pulled Ms. Paquinout of the ravine where the plane ended its slide.But before the plane's emergency exits popped open, the range ofemotions that played out in the crowded aisle of the Airbus A-340 wasa primitive one.Psychologists who study human behaviour under traumatic conditions saythese involuntary survival responses have evolved with us from theearliest days of life on the planet."We have a bunch of primitive reflexes in which we exhibit behaviourlike animals in certain situations," said Steven Taylor, a professorof psychiatry at the University of British Columbia, whose researchfocuses on trauma and anxiety.As Neil Rector, psychologist and head of the anxiety-disorders clinicat Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, put it, "We arehard-wired to seek survival."Generally, Dr. Taylor said, a person can experience four states ofresponse to trauma or a progression of these states.The first is a mode of hypervigilance, where "like a rabbit beinghunted by a dog and hiding in the bush," a person remains very quietand still, absorbing visual cues and scanning the perimeter for anescape route.The second stage involves the urge to flee, followed by the instinctto physically overcome whatever obstacles prevent the escape, commonlyknown as the fight-or-flight response.It is during this third state that people can seem to lose their senseof compassion, Dr. Taylor said, noting this may help explaintemporarily trapped passengers who push and shove as panic sets in.Often people will "later feel embarrassed" for their behaviour.But Dr. Rector pointed out these are automatic reactions. One featureof the fight-or-flight response "is to become myopically focused onthe threat at the expense of other elements of the environment. . . .The instinct for survival overrides the hierarchy of social niceties."The fourth stage, Dr. Taylor said, is "tonic immobility," where aperson might seem to freeze up and later describe the experiencesaying, " 'I couldn't move' . . . They would be just standing thereuntil they were grabbed by someone saying, 'Come on, we've got to getout of here.' "To some extent, Dr. Taylor said, the brain shuts itself down duringtrauma as a protective mechanism, or narrows the ability to focus.This may help explain why some passengers decided to stop to collecttheir carry-on luggage before fleeing the burning aircraft.Dr. Rector noted that those passengers who collected their bags arealso examples of the fact that not everyone perceives danger in thesame way. "Some people perceived less of a threat, and so felt therewas more time to leave in an orderly way."Ms. Paquin, who stopped to gather her bags, was among those who didnot realize the gravity of the situation. The Woodbridge, Ont.,student was surprised by the shouting and panicking of others.Not until she was off the plane, seeing it blazing and turned on itsside, did she think, "Oh my God, I didn't know it was that serious at all."
"Happy to be alive"
Passengers of Flight 358 recount tense moments after landing
by VIVIAN SONG and CHRIS DOUCETTE, reporters
TORONTO SUN
When Air France flight 358 first landed in Toronto after being warned of lightning strikes in the area, the passengers broke into applause.
"We landed and it seemed fine at first, so we all started clapping until all of a sudden we heard this shaking on the aircraft," economist Johnny Abedrabbo, 32, said.
"It just kind of took a nosedive on the runway and swerved to the left."
"We bounced pretty hard," passenger Lauren Langille, 16.
The plane had veered off the runway, but the pilots came on the intercom soon after to reassure passengers that everything was safe and sound, several told The Sun last night at a hotel near the airport.
The first sign of trouble came earlier when the plane aborted a landing and went around for a second attempt.
"The weather is too hard so the captain is going around," passenger Ahmed Alawata recalled.
About a minute before the plane landed, as it approached Pearson the second time, the lights in the cabin went out, said passenger Olivier Dubois. "Just before touching ground, it was all black in the plane, there was no more light, nothing."
Abedrabbo said he heard a sound like a tire blowing out, and the plane began to shimmy and swerve. And that's when he noticed the fire.
"The tire blew up, and as soon as it swerved and stopped, we saw the left engine just basically shoot up in flames, red flames," Abedrabbo said.
Norbert Boudreau of Ottawa said measured panic soon spread throughout the darkened plane.
"Then two minutes later, a stewardess yells out that there was a fire and we had to evacuate at the back," he said.
Langille described how acrid black smoke soon filled the cabin.
"I saw a lot of orange flame. Fire was everywhere and we started to evacuate," she said.
Passengers scrambled out emergency exits and slid down inflatable chutes.
"We slid on our asses to get out and ran up to the street where there was a truck waiting for us," Boudreau said.
Some, like 16-year-old Samantha Todd of Toronto, lost their shoes as they climbed through mud, bushes and brambles to safety. "I wasn't thinking about anything except getting out of the plane," she said.
"There was the fear of the explosion, because we were all trying to go up a hill that was all mud," said Gwen Dunlop, who was returning from a vacation in France.
"We had lost our shoes, we were just scrambling, and there was people with children. The rain was just coming down, and the wind and the lightning. We were just thrown into the weather and thrown into everything."
Dunlop said the evacuation was anything but orderly. "There were people climbing over seats to get out." He said he and other passengers ran through grass as tall as a metre high to the busy Hwy. 401, fearing the plane would explode at any moment.
"Finally we hit a road, where trucks and cars had stopped and people let them into their vehicles," he said.
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"It was a miracle that no one was killed" in yesterday's crash of an Air France Airbus at Pearson airport, says Ontario's deputy chief coroner.
But it's not the first time that an airline disaster has been averted.
Have you ever had a near-miss while flying? Did yesterday's crash at Pearson bring back memories of your own close-call flying experience?
Send your stories by e-mail to online@tor.sunpub.com -- including your full name and city -- and we may publish a selection of your comments online or in the print version of the Sun.
Air France crash probe starts amid dispute over landing
Michel Comte
AFP
August 5, 2005
MIRACLE: Officials view the wreckage of Air France flight 358 as it lies in a gully off the end of the runway in Toronto on August 3. Canadian aircraft investigators said that they are looking at weather as one possible cause of the 'miracle' Toronto plane crash, in which all 309 passengers and crew walked away from the fiery remains of the Airbus A340.(REUTERS)
TORONTO -- An Air France jet that crashed at a Toronto airport was working normally as it arrived, Canadian investigators said on Thursday, but a dispute erupted over who approved the landing during a storm. Canadian authorities and Air France sought to deflect responsibility on who approved the landing while Toronto Pearson International Airport was on "red alert" because of a lightning storm. The Airbus A340 jet hurtled off the runway and ended up in a gully in flames. But all of the 297 passengers and 12 crew survived in what Canada's Transport Minister Jean Lapierre said was a "miracle". Crash investigators have found the so-called black box flight recorders and are studying the information. They said that the jet appeared headed for a safe landing before it skidded off the end of the runway. "The initial landing appeared very normal," said Real Levasseur, lead investigator for the Canadian transportation safety agency. "There was no emergency declared from the part of the air crew and there didn't seem to be anything wrong with the aircraft condition and its safety as it was approaching to land." At least three of four engine thrust reversers deployed during landing, which means, "the crew were doing what they were supposed to do to slow the aircraft down after landing". The fourth thruster was too badly damaged to tell whether it had been working, Levasseur said. He noted that a strong tail wind might have given the plane a push as it sped along the runway. Media reports have highlighted other theories. Passengers and witnesses have said that the jet was hit by lightning as it descended. Experts have also said that it could have aquaplaned because of the torrential rain in the area. Pearson airport had earlier stopped landings and departures because of the storm, which investigators have already said probably played a key role in the accident. Investigators have questioned the copilot who was at the controls, but they gave no details. The decision to land has already become a controversy. Air France chairman Jean-Cyril Spinetta indicated that it was the control tower that decided the Airbus could come down in a storm, while Canadian transport minister Lapierre said that it had been the pilot's decision to land. "There is no recommendation that can force a plane to land," Lapierre told Radio-Canada television late on Wednesday. "The only person who makes a decision to land is the pilot, the commander. And as a result, he has full responsibility for that decision," Lapierre added. Spinetta, who is in Toronto heading an emergency team, seemed to blame airport authorities for allowing the landing. "Airport authorities apparently deemed conditions for landing difficult but still possible" despite the rain and wind, he told a news conference. "The Air France jet - I have personally confirmed this - had enough fuel left, if it had been necessary, to land at another airport," he said. Rescuers praised the copilot for taking a last look around the jet to assure no one had been trapped on board. The captain of the jet injured his back in the accident and investigators will not interview him until doctors give approval, Levasseur said. A flight attendant and 12 passengers were still in hospital, according to officials. Passengers Carla Sbrugnera and her husband Enrico Giacomuzzi Moore suffered the worst injuries in the crash. She fractured three vertebrae and he fractured one, doctors said. Randy Knipping, a doctor at Trillium Health Centre in Toronto who specializes in aviation-related injuries, said: "This is still a minor injury from the point of trauma. But when you get your back broken in three places, it's not minor from the point of view of the patient." The couple was sitting in the first row in first class at the front of the plane when it fell into a gully. Giacomuzzi Moore put his head between his legs and his knee was thrown up and broke his nose, Knipping said.
Family sues for 'severe' trauma
Kids now afraid to get into a car: Lawyer
By SARAH GREEN, TORONTO SUN
Air France probe focuses on landingSurvivor fears she'll never flySurvivors promised payoutFlyers: Airport fails guideines
FIVE MEMBERS of a Toronto family who were passengers on the Air France flight are planning to sue for damages for the injuries and trauma they suffered in the fiery crash.
Lawyer David Diamond, representing the family who asked not to be named, said the suit -- to be filed in coming weeks -- will likely ask for damages in the "tens of thousands" for each member of the family.
Diamond said the father injured his ankle and the three children, aged eight to 15, are traumatized by the ordeal, "swearing up and down they're not going to fly again."
One of the children is suffering from bad headaches and all three, who are having nightmares, will need therapy, he said.
"It's severe psychological trauma," Diamond said. "They're afraid to get into a car. It's pretty traumatic for them."
He said the parents are coping "pretty well" with the emotional aftermath.
The suit will possibly name Air France and the Greater Toronto Airport Authority, although no decision has been made, he said. It may become a class-action suit as more passengers come forward.
The family commends the swift evacuation of the Airbus with saving the lives of all 297 passengers and 12 crew members. "There wasn't the panic and mayhem that could have occurred," Diamond said.
Meanwhile, Toronto firm Will Barristers: Morin and Miller will hold an information session next Wednesday for Air France passengers with noted U.S. lawyer Mary Schiavo. She represents families of passengers on the hijacked Sept. 11 planes. nic and mayhem that could have occurred," Diamond said.
Meanwhile, Toronto firm Will Barristers: Morin and Miller will hold an information session next Wednesday for Air France passengers with noted U.S. lawyer Mary Schiavo. She represents families of passengers on the hijacked Sept. 11 planes.
posted by DANIELBLOOM at 11:38 PM
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