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Wouldn't it have been better to divert the 'plane to another airport (where the weather wasn't so bad) then wait for a connecting flight to Toronto?
It's nothing short of a miracle that there were no fatalities.
Here's the story:
[cnews.canoe.ca...]
[added]
From Toronto Sun article:
At the time of the crash, Pearson was under a "red alert," meaning there was a threat of thunder and lightning around Canada's busiest airport.As a result, Shaw said all ground support for aircraft was cancelled, leaving pilots to decide if they would circle and wait or divert to another airport.
But, I hear that this was not the only plane landing or taking off at the time. The storm was not that big, I was actually looking at the radar during that time (hoping for rain so I did not have to water my garden) so they could have circled for a half hour. But, I guess these pilots are so used to flying in bad weather they just assume it won't happen to them.
What a wild story about the victims walking onto the 401 and hitchhiking.
What a wild story about the victims walking onto the 401 and hitchhiking.
I'm sorry, but if I'd just survived a plane crash, I still don't think I'd take my chances going near the 401 on foot. That's a little more crazy than the crash itself!
They get twice as much snow in Buffalo as the do in Toronto. Buffalo gets lake effect snow in the early parts of the winter. Plus, believe me, even people from Buffalo would rather be in Toronto most days.
Yes, the 401 is crazy, busiest highway in Canada and I believe the second busiest on the continent.
If they had been having thunder and lightning and torrential rain (in other words severe weather conditions) why on EARTH did they even ATTEMPT a landing?
There was no safety reason TO try landing during that weather condition. They should not have been there/doing that. He no doubt landed too far down the runway at too fast a speed because of some wind shear trouble on the approach. A VERY predictable event when thunderstorms of any size are nearby.
It has now been nearly 50 years since the aviation world became more knowledgable about wind shear (often known as microbursts) - the gusts, up drafts and down drafts, and changing wind directions especially associated with thunderstorms. Many jets crashed and many died while learing about this reality. Those big heavy jets just can't react quickly enough to recover from wind shear while in the process of landing or taking off.
I know what I speak of. I am a pilot. I have an aeronautical engineering degree. And I have analysed accidents such as this while working as a flight performance expert at Boeing and McDonnell Douglas. And the Airbus is ruled by the same laws of physics as those craft.
And for the fuel? Plenty of alternative airports, plus regulations require enough fuel on board for contingency - bad headwinds, holding while conditions improve, and having to divert to an alternate airport for instance. The large fire pretty much indicated that lack of fuel was not the reason.
Thankfully, all survived. The worse part of all those analyses is the "who survived, who didn't, and why" sections.
