Weather Likely Main Factor In Runway Overrun

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Weather may be the single biggest factor in the runway overrun of an Air France A340 at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport on Tuesday. “It was definitely an extreme storm, something we haven’t seen in a long time,” Brian Lackey, vice president of operations for the Greater Toronto Airport Authority, told reporters Wednesday. “As we were looking out the window, we were commenting that storm was extremely severe and we hadn’t seen one like that.” The plane skidded 200 yards off the end of the runway into a ravine and caught fire but none of the 309 people aboard was seriously hurt. Canadian Transportation Safety Board officials were to recover data and voice recorders on Wednesday but speculation is the plane encountered either a microburst or wind shear in the final seconds of its approach and then hydroplaned on the drenched runway. It may also have been struck by lightning The airport was under a red alert, meaning the likelihood of thunderstorms, at the time, but was not closed.

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