My hats off to...............

[deuces wild]

........the crew of the Air France plane crashing yesterday, saving all 309 people aboard.

The crew was able to totally evacuate the plane in about 90 seconds. That is absolutely amazing.

Good going Air France! :flowers:

TORONTO (CP) - The evacuation of more than 300 people aboard an ill-fated Air France flight took less than two minutes, with a co-pilot the last to leave the flaming wreckage - a "textbook case" of how to deal with an airliner emergency, officials said Wednesday as the investigation into the dramatic crash of Flight 358 got underway in earnest.

Three-quarters of the 309 passengers and crew who were aboard the plane when it skidded off a Pearson International Airport runway were able to escape the wreckage in the 52 seconds it took for emergency crews to arrive, said airport fire Chief Mike Figliola.

"The evacuation was a minute and a half to two minutes maximum," Figiola told a news conference.

"The crew did a great job, they're trained to get the people off. This is what they're trained to do and they did it perfect. It was a textbook case of getting the plane evacuated."

http://politics.yahoo.com/s/cpress/plane_crash

[expertec]

Indeed, well done them. Though that is the rule anyway:

Air travel regulations across North America and Europe have been gradually tightened in an effort to reduce the risks to passengers caught up in accidents.

Chief among these in the so-called "golden rule": every passenger on board a commercial airliner must be able to clamber off the plane within 90 seconds of an incident, even if half the doors are blocked.

[Scarecrow Man]

Apparently the plane landed fine, but was struck by lightning on the ground which caused the pilots to loose all control.

Good to hear everyone was OK.

[deuces wild]

Indeed, well done them. Though that is the rule anyway:

Air travel regulations across North America and Europe have been gradually tightened in an effort to reduce the risks to passengers caught up in accidents.

Chief among these in the so-called "golden rule": every passenger on board a commercial airliner must be able to clamber off the plane within 90 seconds of an incident, even if half the doors are blocked.

Making that time during a test run is one thing......making it happen during an actual crash and fire scenario is another. ;-)

[expertec]

I guess so... they did a really good job then.

I hear the black box recorders have been found, we should know more about the crash soon.

[Tankus]

quality flight crew

superb

[popeye]

Yep! great piece of work by a good crew.

[bvw]

quality flight crew

superb

says it all.

Well done.

[andsome]

BRILLIANT WORK. The point is however that the plane had sufficient fuel to divert to another airport that had better weather. How many more lives must be lost in attempting take offs and landings in bad conditions. I well remember the plane that crashed into the river in Washington some years ago, and earlier than that the Munich crash on take off. I once landed at Birmingham airport some years ago, and how the hell the pilot got the damned thing down in one piece still amazes me when I think about it. During the approach, one second the ground was visible, next second the sky. The plane was thrown about everywhere. I counted at least eleven people including one stewardess who had fainted.

[-pops-]

My "son in law" is a pilot. His opinion is that if the weather is found to be responsible for this event, at least some of the blame for the occurence must lie with air traffic control.

An aircraft is not permitted to land at an airport without the full authority of the air traffic controllers so it is they who considered it safe to land at that time. The pilot may have been dubious about landing but he cannot have any knowledge of the exact conditions on the ground when he makes the final approach - that is what ATC are for. OK, the landing could have been aborted but, once the aircraft touches the ground, it is extremely difficult to get it in the air again in the short time available before disaster might happen.

It is reported that the plane was circling the airport several times waiting for conditions to improve. In retrospect, it may have been better to find another airport - that is ultimately the pilot's responsibility under ATC advice.

Nevertheless, all praise to the crew involved in averting what could have been a very nasty accident. All aircrew are obviously trained to act in this way and is a constant hope with all involved that they never have to use the training in a real life situation.

[andsome]

I fully appreciate the above points. Obviously the pilot is completely in the hands of Air Traffic Control. They would have been well advised to have diverted all flights, as should have happened in far too many cases in the past.

[Thos]

Pops and andsome make good points above and no doubt these and others will be aired in the forthcoming enquiry to find out the causes of the accident and whether it could have been avoided.

Congratulations are, however due to the crew for their sterling work putting into practice hours of no doubt boring training in simulations which can carry no real resemblance to the real thing.

Thos.