Air France Jet Overran Runway

(CBS/AP)  Investigators said Friday that the Air France jet that crashed earlier this week appeared to have landed too far down the runway, which may have contributed to it skidding off its path and into a ravine before bursting into flames.

They were quick to add that it was too soon to determine whether the long landing on the 9,000-foot runway, combined with torrential rains and gusting winds, was to blame for the crash on Tuesday, which all 309 people on board remarkably survived.

"We do have some information that the aircraft did land long," Real Levasseur, chief investigator for Canada's Transportation Safety Board, told a news briefing. "We are still in the process of gathering all that data to find out what that means."

When pressed on whether landing long would have contributed to the crash, Levasseur said: "An aircraft like the 340 should land well toward the back; how long exactly depends on weight, heavy winds, there are a number of factors," he said. "We will certainly be looking at information; and if it turns out the aircraft did land further down the runway ... we will try to determine whether this had a major or critical effect."

Witnesses and some passengers have said that it appeared that Air France Flight 358 from Paris was coming in too fast and too long when it landed at about 4 p.m. in thunderstorms.

"There are quite a few witnesses who say they observed the aircraft halfway down the runway, longer than normal and longer than usual for this type of aircraft," he said.
But the transatlantic flight had been mostly routine, reports CBS News Correspondent Bob Orr. The four-engine plane took off from Paris' Charles de Gaulle Airport, and while it was briefly delayed by weather, the jetliner made a normal approach to Toronto's Pearson International Airport.

The first sign of trouble came minutes before landing when the pilot aborted an initial attempt to land the plane because of the storm and powerful winds.

"The lights went off, like, a minute before landing. And then the plane landed normally for maybe 10 seconds. And then after that, the disaster happened," passenger Oliver Dubos told co-anchor Hannah Storm.

Levasseur said there was no evidence, meanwhile, that lightning struck the Airbus A340 as it was landing, as reported by some witnesses. "The wings and wing tips are in pretty good shape."

He also said investigators have determined that all four engine thrust-reversers were in operation and working fine, "so that's a good sign."

An Air France spokesman in Paris declined to comment, saying the carrier would wait for the result of a full investigation before publicly discussing the possible cause of the crash.

The captain of the Air France jet, meanwhile, remained hospitalized with back injuries on Friday and would not be questioned until his physical state improves, officials said.

The co-pilot of Air France Flight 358, which crashed at Canada's busiest airport, was questioned Thursday as investigators try to piece together why the plane skidded off the runway and burst into flames after landing in a ravine. Investigators said details of the co-pilot queries were "privileged" information and would not be made public at this time.

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