Vuelo de AirCanada se estrella en Halifax: No hay heridos

5:58:30 a.m.

El vuelo 624 de AirCanada procedente de Toronto se estrelló esta noche en la pista de aterrizaje del aeropuerto de Halifax Stanfield, Canadá, según The Chronicle Herald.

El avión llevaba 200 personas a bordo. Se informa que los pasajeros llamaron al 911 desde el interior del avión, comunicando la existencia de graves daños en la aeronave. 

Según los últimos datos, todos los pasajeros han sido evacuados. No se informa de la existencia de heridos graves.

La nave es un Airbus 320, mismo modelo del trágico accidente ocurrido en los Alpes esta semana.

Según reportes, el fluido eléctrico en la terminal aérea se interrumpió debido a que el avión rompió las líneas.

“El avión ha realizado un aterrizaje fallido”, ha afirmado el portavoz del aeropuerto.

Passengers were first taken to the LifeFlight hangar to be assessed after deplaning.

Early reports from the scene were that many of the passengers sustained cuts and were shaken up.

Randy Hall and his wife Lianne Clark were on their way home from a Mexican vacation when they said the plane ran in to trouble as it was about to land.

“We just thought that we were landing hard. And when the … air bags started to deploy and you saw thing falling on the floor, we said, ‘Oh no. We’ve got to get out,’ ” said Clark, a computer consultant

“We just opened the doors when we landed and everyone started to pile out.”

Hall said he believe the jet hit a power line and landed hard on the runway. There were sparks but no fire, he said.

“We were just coming in to land and there was a big flash,” said Hall. “The plane came down, bang! It jumped up in the air again.”

The aircraft skidded for a long time before coming to a stop, said Hall, who is retired and lives in Mount Uniacke.

Hall said passengers left the plane immediately but they were left standing on the tarmac for more than an hour as they were lashed by wind-whipped snow.

He saw some people with bloody faces, but he said it didn’t appear that anyone was seriously injured.

Numerous emergency vehicles, including fire, police and ambulances responded to the scene at the airport.

A power outage at the airport, slippery road conditions and downed power lines made response efforts even more challenging.

Power went off at the airport at about the same time as the crash, and was restored at 2:10 a.m.

“We don’t know if there is a connection between a loss of power and the aircraft running off the runway,” Spurway said.

Capital Health said its hospitals were initially in a Code Orange situation, which means mass casualties, and had called in extra staff.

However it ended Code Orange at about 3:30 a.m. saying it had received 13 patients at three hospitals, with minor injuries.

The air field is expected to remain closed for several hours, Spurway said.

“That aircraft has to be moved,” he said.

A spokesman for the Transportation Safety Board of Canada says two investigators were scheduled to arrive at the airport early Sunday to assess whether an investigation will be done by the agency.

Airport officials set up a command post at the Alt Hotel, adjacent to the airport.

Spurway said emergency responders were at the scene within 90 seconds and their first priority was dealing with any possibility of fire.

Fire trucks had limited space and the power outage complicated getting buses to the scene, said Spurway.

“Once it was determined that threat was out of the way, they put some of the passengers in fire trucks to get them out of the weather on a triage basis,” he said.

“There was a large tarp used to protect some of the passengers but they were out there for a while, that’s for sure, until the buses arrived.”

He said the power outage created “some communication difficulties” for airport staff reacting to the crash.

“We will review every aspect of our response to the situation,” Spurway said.