Original subtitles

In heavy wind and blinding rain,

the crew of a passenger jet struggles to land.

Put it down!

Put it down!

A terrifying crash-landing leads

to a desperate fight to survive.

The only thing that matters to me now

is to get my daughter Emilie and protect her as we blow up.

We just knew that there were so many passengers in that plane

that had not gotten out.

Open the door! Open the door!

Ladies and gentlemen,

we are starting our approach.

We lost both engines!

Put the mask over your nose.

Emergency descent.

Mayday, mayday.

Brace for impact!

I think I lost one.

Investigation starting...

He's gonna crash!

Tuesday, August 2, 2005.

Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris.

297 passengers are boarding Air France flight 358

bound for Toronto.

Uh, far aisle, left-hand side.

Philippe Lacaille is traveling with his wife

and two of his four children.

They're stuck at the back of the enormous jet--

and they're not sitting together.

Emilie.

It just happened that we were separated from Emilie.

They had three seats together,

so we were in the middle section,

and Emilie was actually sitting a couple of seats ahead of us

on the right side,

so, close to the right wing of the plane.

For Eddie Ho, flight 358 is the continuation

of a trip that began in Johannesburg.

I was carrying everything that I had--

my books to my clothing to tuition money for the year.

Computer laptops.

This is also another leg in a long journey

for Joann Cordary-Bundock,

who's returning from a trip to Thailand.

I rerouted myself in the last two days before the flight

from Bangkok through Paris to come directly to Toronto.

As the passengers continue to board,

the flight crew get settled in to the Airbus A340.

The Captain is 57-year-old Alain Rosaye.

He's been with Air France for more than 20 years.

His co-pilot is 43-year-old Frederic Naud.

Do you want to start, or should I?

Why don't you fly first,

and then I'll take over for landing in Toronto.

I'll check the weather.

On this flight, the two men decide

that Captain Rosaye will handle the takeoff in Paris

and co-pilot Naud will land in Toronto.

Destination, Toronto Pearson.

Check.

Crews often split the duties

so that co-pilots can get more experience.

Rosaye and Naud are joined by one other person in the cockpit.

I think you've been expecting me.

-I'm Miles Trochesset. -Welcome aboard.

Miles Trochesset is the son

of an Air France employee.

He's allowed to ride in the cockpit's jump seat for free.

I just want to let you know I've done this before.

I promise I'll be quiet.

This Air France plane

is one of the safest in the world.

Since the A340s first went into service in 1993,

they've had an excellent safety record.

Air France 358.

Air France 358.

Runway 2-7 left cleared for takeoff.

Cleared for takeoff, Air France 358.

Have a good afternoon, gentlemen.

Just a few minutes before 2:00 in the afternoon,

flight 358 powers into the sky above Paris.

Toronto may be several thousand miles away,

but the friends and family of those on board flight 358

are already making plans to meet the plane when it arrives.

Hello?

Audrey, I won't forget.

I'll make sure to pick up mom and dad.

No, I won't forget the two brats, either.

I'll get them all.

Well, we usually make arrangements

before we go to France to be picked up.

It's easier because we have lots of luggage, you know,

and we bring back stuff from France.

So it just happened that Julien, our son,

was going to spend the summer in Toronto

and was available to pick us up.

Sis, I'll give you a call as soon as they get in.

Don't worry, I've got it covered.

Ok?

Alright.

Talk to you soon.

Bye.

...center. We have a humidex advisory,

an extreme heat alert for Toronto

as well a thunderstorm warning in effect for Toronto.

A regular flight from Paris to Toronto

takes about eight hours.

As Air France 358 closes in on Canada,

there is little to separate this trip from any other.

I found that their service was amazing.

The food was great.

They had very good flight attendants.

There were a lot of exchange students from France.

You know, like teenagers coming to Canada for their first time,

usually their first flight.

And they were very rowdy.

There was a beautiful day on the flight over,

and the sun was shining,

and it was just blue skies and white clouds

and just a lovely day.

The autopilot does most of the work

for Captain Alain Rosaye and his co-pilot, Frederic Naud.

Just as the two men had planned,

Naud is now in control of the plane.

We have a new weather report.

The two men get regular updates

on the weather conditions in Toronto.

Overcast and rainy with a chance of thunderstorms.

Temperature in the low 20s.

At Toronto's International Airport,

the thunderstorms are already rolling through.

Rain, wind and lightning are hammering the runways.

The lightning has already forced airport authorities

to declare a red alert.

It means that the chance of being struck by lightning

is so great that ground crews

are not allowed to work on the planes.

Just as flight 358 closes in on Toronto,

it's put into a holding pattern.

The weather isn't getting any better.

Air France 358,

there's going to be a little delay.

Air France 358.

Roger on delay.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking.

I'm sorry to inform you that there'll be a short delay.

There's some weather conditions above Toronto,

and we're just going to give it a couple of minutes to clear up.

While they're not in the storm yet,

the crew enters their holding pattern

northeast of Toronto.

Their alternate airport is almost

200 miles away in Ottawa.

At the moment, the plane has

a little over 16,500 pounds of fuel in its tanks--

more than enough to get them there.

Typically a pilot will think about the economic impact

of diverting to an alternate airport.

While that is not a primary decision maker,

it is an alternate decision maker

as far if they have to divert,

how are the folks gonna be transported

from that alternate airport back to the destination airport

that the airplane was originally going to.

Flying almost 300 passengers to Ottawa

would be a logistical nightmare.

But the crew can't circle for too long

with the fuel they have.

If the delay continues, they'll have no choice but to divert.

Air France, Toronto arrival.

Your hold is now canceled.

You are cleared for a wasie 2 arrival.

Maintain 5,000 feet.

Air France 358.

Roger on cancellation of holds.

Cleared for wasie 2 arrival and maintain...

Today the delay isn't long at all.

Although the storm continues to thunder down near the airport,

the crew is put into their landing sequence.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking.

I just wanted to let you know

we're beginning our descent into Toronto at this time.

We should be on the ground at about 4 p.m. local time.

Usually when they say 45 minutes,

you know, it's to be nice.

Usually it's like an hour, an hour and a half.

This time it was like 20 minutes.

20 minutes later they said "Ok,

"well, now we're going to go down,

prepare, you know, for the landing".

With co-pilot Frederic Naud at the controls,

the plane begins its descent into the storm.

Air France 358, reducing speed to 1-9-0.

Naud isn't prepared for what he's about to face.

The storm has a savage surprise in store

for everyone on board flight 358.

Flaps two.

Flaps two.

F speed.

Gear down.

Landing gear down.

Spoilers armed.

Four green.

Landing gear down. Spoilers armed.

Four green.

It'll be fine. Don't worry.

It immediately turned into very dark skies and dark clouds

and a little bit bumpy and choppy.

And the weather outside

was definitely within a thunderstorm.

But really and truly to me,

it was just a typical stormy landing,

nothing out of the ordinary.

In the main cabin, though, not everyone is so sure.

The plane was getting very bumpy.

There was a lot of turbulence.

We were surrounded basically by heavy rain,

and this was completely not expected.

I didn't expect that.

Air France 358, slow your final approach speed.

Air France 358...

Co-pilot Frederic Naud has the plane in position.

He's moments from landing.

Air France 358.

Roger.

Flaps to full.

Flaps full.

It was going darker and darker.

We were like in the middle of hundreds

and hundreds of lightnings every second,

we had lightnings all around us.

So people were getting nervous, quite nervous.

I was getting nervous.

Ahead of the Air France Airbus,

two other planes have just touched down

on the same runway that flight 358 is heading for.

Air France 358, this is Toronto tower.

Toronto tower, Air France 358, go ahead.

You are cleared to land runway 2-4 left.

Be advised that preceding aircraft reports

braking action is poor

and they estimate the surface winds near the runway

as 290 degrees at 15 to 20 knots.

Braking poor, 15 knots, gusts to 20.

Air France 358, thank you.

The crew is being sent to runway 24 left,

which will allow them to land into the wind.

It also happens to be the closest runway

to the city's biggest freeway,

which is gearing up to handle the evening rush hour traffic.

Facing unpredictable winds and a wet runway,

the crew prepares for the landing.

Select autobrakes to medium.

Medium is set.

The final approach for landing was hellish.

Lightnings were all over,

uh, turbulences were enormous.

You could feel the pilot fight with the plane

to keep the plane in line with the runway to land,

and had a heck of a time to keep it lined up.

I know my son next to me was getting very nervous,

and I was nervous to see my daughter actually far from us.

I cinched up my seatbelt tighter than it was,

expecting a very hard landing,

and the pilot was gonna stick it on the runway

or we were maybe gonna do a touch and go

and he was gonna give it power and go around,

because I knew that it was not going to be

just a normal landing.

Landing.

Autopilot, autothrust off.

At two minutes after 4 o'clock,

Air France flight 358 roars over the beginning of the runway.

Put it down!

Put it down!

This landing was more intense and harder

than any time I've ever landed in another aircraft.

It was a very difficult landing.

And everyone started clapping,

and even the lady sitting next to me,

I remember this very clearly.

She said, you know, "Wow, that was an amazing landing".

And as soon as she finished that sentence,

then all hell broke loose.

We started just,

the plane started violently going up and down.

And it felt like we were going a hundred miles an hour

down a road filled with potholes that were about three feet deep.

and for me it's a picture I will never forget.

My daughter was sitting ahead of us

on the right side of the plane,

and at that time she turned her head towards us,

you know, with very wide eyes, you know, looking at us.

And her face was surrounded by this enormous aura,

orange aura of fire.

Then, moments after touching down,

still traveling at 90 miles per hour,

flight 358 runs out of room.

At that point, I believed that we were all going to die.

It was obvious that no one can survive this kind of thing.

I thought this was it.

The next thing that I can remember

is that an announcement came.

"Ladies and gentlemen, everything's ok.

We've stopped now".

Well, no kidding! Of course we've stopped now!

But I could tell that everything was not ok

because I could immediately smell jet fuel.

As the smell of jet fuel fills the cabin...

Fire!

We have to evacuate now!

...panic quickly spreads.

Everybody was expecting the plane to go up.

It was obvious.

Smoke and flames are spreading fast.

Now it's a desperate struggle to escape.

If they don't get out, they have just seconds to live.

We know that about two minutes into a fire

in many cases the environment becomes untenable.

So 90 seconds is a good rule that we use

in trying to get people out to make sure they have

as much time and safety as possible.

297 passengers are desperate to leave the plane.

Emilie!

Emilie! Emilie!

Daddy!

The only thing that matters to me now

is to get my daughter Emilie,

who's sitting like two seats ahead of me,

get her, get her under me, and protect her as we blow up.

Go! Go, go, go!

Am I going to try and get my luggage,

my laptop?

And then I thought to myself,

what if I would die trying to get my laptop?

I just said, "Ok, I've got to get out.

I've got to get out".

Flight 358 has eight possible emergency exits.

But seconds after the crash, most of them aren't opened.

People were crawling over the seats.

They were pushing each other.

There was... Basically all for yourself.

Hey! Stay calm, please.

Please stay calm.

It will be alright.

Open the door!

Open the door!

And I could see the air attendant there

struggling with the fact

that "Should I or should I not open this door,"

because the fire was raging just in front of it.

If the fuel tanks rupture

and we have a lot of fuel that gets out,

either onto the ground,

well, then there's enough heat and fire there

that would cause the airplane skin to melt

in a couple of minutes.

At the front of the plane,

thick smoke is pouring in through one of the open doors.

Joann Cordary-Bundock races to the other side of the plane.

The gentleman in front of me

had his bag with him,

and he was kind of fumbling around with that

and trying to take that down the slide.

And he was a rather large man,

and the slide did not deploy the entire way.

So I kind of bailed off the side above him

and hit the ground.

Eddie Ho has found an exit, too.

But there's no slide.

Had people pushing me forward.

Basically you just had to jump.

So what I did was, you know, I prayed quickly

and I closed my eyes and jumped.

-Is he okay? -I don't know.

Is he okay?

In the cockpit, Captain Rosaye

has been badly injured

when his seat was ripped off the floor

by the force of the crash.

As precious seconds tick by,

the flight attendant near the Lacaille family

manages to open the exit door.

Even though passengers are confronted

with the flames and smoke of the burning engine,

they jump out of the plane.

So I pushed them down,

my wife went down, I went down...

We just ran up as fast as we could

through torn metal

and thorns

and like through whatever was left of the ground

where the plane was.

Emergency workers reach the burning jet

just 52 seconds after it crashes.

But with the threat of an explosion,

it's dangerous to get too close.

Philippe Lacaille and his family

struggle up the hill the plane has just plowed down.

You know, and at that point, the...

The plane blew up.

Once, twice, three times,

so you could feel and hear

this enormous explosion, actually.

And of course, at that time I figured, my God,

that could have been us.

About 35 minutes ago

a plane ran off the runway at Toronto's Pearson Airport...

Footage of the crash quickly appears

on local TV stations.

Philippe Lacaille's daughter Audrey

is one of the many people shocked by the pictures.

She turned on the TV, and here we go,

there was the Air France crash right here,

live in front of her, you know,

burning, exploding right in front of her eyes.

250 people on board.

We've have not had any reason to make a statement yet

as to whether anybody has survived or escaped.

Philippe Lacaille's son Julien

is waiting for his father at the airport.

He has no idea what has just happened

to the Air France flight.

What? What do you mean where am I?

I'm at the airport waiting for mom and dad like...

What?

So Julien didn't know anything,

and he was there at the airport,

and she says, "Well, you know what?

"I think you're going to have to wait a long time,

because their plane just crashed."

One of the busiest highways in North America

borders the airport.

Just before rush hour,

it's packed with thousands of vehicles.

Some of the passengers who escaped the plane

stagger to the edge of the highway--

where passing motorists stop to take them to the airport.

At this point, there was only

about 25 or 30 people

with me in the airport,

and here you're also beginning to think, is this all there is?

As people are brought in,

airport employees struggle to account

for all the passengers and crew.

They were totally disorganized.

There's no announcements being made.

There's nothing of any kind of organization.

And you're waiting to be processed.

Relatives wait desperately for any news.

Julien Lacaille is just one of many who fears the worst.

For a least an hour and a half

he thought we were dead.

That's a shame because of course we panicked,

we were scared to death.

But the families that were waiting for the passengers,

they were even more scared because it lasted much longer.

They really believed deep down

that their family members were dead.

Finally, hours after the crash,

passengers are reunited with their families.

Julien.

Julien!

Are you ok?

Hi!

We're ok.

How did you get in?

We finally met up with Julien,

it was 11 o'clock at night.

It was, whew... You know, God.

We're so lucky.

We're so lucky we're alive, you know.

It's hard to explain.

It's just one of dozens of reunions.

It takes hours to confirm, but by early evening,

Air France and the local airport authorities

can make the incredible announcement.

Remarkably, every single passenger

and all the members of the crew of flight 358

have managed to escape the burning wreckage of their plane.

The next day, smoke and charred wreckage

are all that remain of Air France flight 358.

The Airbus A340 is a sophisticated,

highly engineered plane with a glowing safety record.

What had gone so terribly wrong?

Canada's Transportation Safety Board

quickly begins investigating the accident.

Landing.

Autopilot, autothrust off.

Rain and lightning had been pounding the airport

all afternoon.

Was it simply bad weather that caused this crash?

Put it down!

Put it down!

Neither the pilot nor the co-pilot

have spoken publicly about the crash.

We have to evacuate now!

Citing lawsuits that were filed soon after,

Air France has kept all of its employees who were on the plane

from speaking to the media.

- Is he okay? -I don't know.

- Is he okay? -I don't know.

But former Air France trainer Herve Laborthe

has spoken to Captain Rosaye.

We spoke, let me think,

for half an hour.

He told me that this is the crucial point--

that he asked control.

More specifically he informed control

that he had reached the point

where he would have to consider diverting.

What he told me is that control informed him

that they would soon open the runway.

There was of course a lot of lightning, rain and turbulence.

And turbulence can have a devastating effect.

Instruments become more difficult to read.

The aircraft is harder to handle.

Investigators discover

that as the crew struggled for control in the cockpit,

on the ground, delicate instruments

used to measure the wind at the runway

were destroyed by lightning.

With the ground equipment destroyed,

they were relying on their onboard systems

for information about wind conditions.

The onboard equipment only gives them

the actual wind direction and speed

on the nose of the aircraft at that exact time.

It does not predict ahead of the aircraft.

So the pilots really have no way of knowing

what lies ahead of them.

But two planes had touched down

just minutes before the Air France flight

on the same runway.

The crews of those planes did their best

to inform air traffic control of the tricky conditions.

Air France 358, this is Toronto tower.

Toronto tower, Air France 358, go ahead.

You are cleared to land runway 2-4 left.

Be advised that preceding aircraft reports

braking action is poor

and they estimate the surface winds near the runway

as 290 degrees at 15 to 20 knots.

Braking poor, 15 knots, gusts...

23-mile-an-hour winds are strong--

but are well within the allowable range

for landing an A340.

But when investigators study radar images of the airport,

they discover quite a different story.

As flight 358 landed, a sharp line of rain

moved across the runway from north to south.

It was driven by a sudden gust of wind

of up to 38 miles per hour.

The crew of the Air France jet had to deal with conditions

that were much worse than they were expecting.

Landing.

Autopilot, autothrust off.

33 knots is the demonstrated maximum crosswind

for an A340,

and that would be on a dry runway.

So when you say 33 knots at 90 degrees,

you're encroaching on the limits of the aircraft.

A study of the Toronto airport

reveals that maintenance issues--

and the storm itself--

were forcing air traffic controllers

to use runway 24 left for landings.

It is the shortest runway at the airport--

almost 2,100 feet shorter than some of the others.

Blinded by rain driven by unexpected winds

and landing on the shortest runway at the airport,

flight 358 was in a dangerous position.

Over the previous four hours

they had been made aware of the terrible storms and red alerts.

And that was, for me, my biggest concern.

Were they perhaps over-tired?

Were they lax, victims of routine?

In any case, it's obvious

they hadn't gauged the extent of the danger.

It's evident that the flight crew

didn't perceive the information

that they were getting from these various sources

as being threatening.

Therefore they attempted to make a landing.

But even in bad conditions--

even on a short runway--

the crew had more than 9,800 feet

in which to land their plane.

It should have been enough.

To find out why it wasn't, investigators look to the past.

In 1999, an eerily similar accident took place

in Little Rock, Arkansas.

-We're off course. -No, I can't see it.

Way off.

Struggling with unpredictable weather,

the crew of an American Airlines jet landed their plane--

only to have it skid off the runway.

11 people were killed.

Greg Feith helped investigate that crash.

One of the first things that I thought about

was deja vu.

Having the first bits of information

about the Air France accident,

it reminded me so much of the American Airlines accident.

In the little rock crash,

Feith discovered that the crew had made a critical mistake,

which contributed significantly to the accident.

They hadn't followed all of the checklist procedures,

and they didn't have the ground spoilers armed,

which basically degrades the efficiency of lift on the wing

and settles the airplane heavily on the main wheels

so that braking action is more effective.

Spoilers are only one of several ways

pilots of passenger jets stop their massive planes.

Reverse thrusters are used

to redirect the engine power forward as the plane lands.

And sophisticated brakes help slow the jets down.

To rule out any mechanical fault,

all three systems are examined

by investigators of the Air France crash.

One of the brakes on flight 358 was destroyed in the fire.

But the seven other sets of brakes

are all tested after the accident.

All of them are working properly.

Flaps two.

Flaps two. F speed.

Investigators in Toronto also discover that--

unlike in the little rock crash--

this time the spoilers had deployed properly.

Landing gear down.

Spoilers armed.

Four green.

And when the engines are examined,

the reverse thrusters are deployed.

No obvious mechanical fault can be found.

As the investigation continues,

a french newspaper prints a bombshell.

Le Figaro publishes a story

claiming that the thrust reversers--

which use the jet's engines to slow it down--

were not turned on

until the plane had been on the runway

for more than 12 seconds.

As for Captain Rosaye,

he confirmed the newspaper report.

His explanation was that his co-pilot had tensed up

and was having difficulty controlling

the lateral movement of the plane.

No doubt because of the strong crosswinds

and because the runway was so slippery,

his hand was clamped tightly on the throttle release lever,

which prevented the Captain from reaching it himself.

So the reverse thrusters could not be activated.

Shortly after the newspaper story appears,

investigators publish their initial report.

It confirms Le Figaro's version of events.

Canada's transportation safety board reveals that,

while the thrusters were found in their on position

at the crash site,

they had not been deployed as soon as the plane landed.

In fact, it took 17 seconds

before they reached maximum power.

The delay was a question raised in the report,

and I wouldn't want to hazard a guess

as to why there was such a delay,

or what was the cause of it.

I just know that pilots, as a rule,

want to get those reversers in as quickly as possible...

For maximum stopping.

The investigators reveal other confusing facts

about the last few seconds of flight 358.

When it came over the start of the runway,

it was twice as high as it should have been.

And when it did land, it was nearly halfway down the runway.

Put it down!

Put it down!

In these stormy conditions,

the crew didn't have enough time to stop.

Once they found that the airplane

had floated down the runway,

the pilot has to make the decision

whether we stay on the ground

and try to salvage this bad situation

or we abort the landing, power up, pull up and go around,

get our stuff together and then come back for a second landing.

But decisions in a cockpit are joint decisions.

The Captain and the first officer work together.

If the Captain sees that landing will be difficult,

he must open throttle

and go through abort landing procedures.

That's his duty.

And of course, the co-pilot

is also allowed to be the first to act.

But the Captain's duty is to avoid

at all cost a lengthy touchdown.

That is clear.

By the time the plane touched down,

it had just 4,900 feet to stop.

And when it did land, critical seconds were lost

when the reverse thrusters weren't engaged.

Would it have made a difference

to immediately activate the reverse thrusters?

Of course it would.

Since reverse function reaches its peak efficiency

at high speed, that is the exact moment of touchdown,

that's what reverse is there for.

It's all a matter of aerodynamic braking.

The other problem is that the wheels touched ground

in the middle of the runway,

and reverse or no reverse,

at that point it was already too late,

as was pointed out by the head of the inquiry.

That being said,

if the reverse thrusters had been activated immediately,

the plane would have come to a stop more quickly.

In heavy storms,

the margin for error is razor thin.

On this rain-filled afternoon,

sudden wind, a long landing and a short runway

sealed the fate of everyone on board flight 358.

What concerns some in the aviation industry

isn't this particular flight,

but the reality that overruns are far too common--

they happen all around the world.

And safety procedures that could stop them are not in place.

Flight 358 wasn't the only jet

to go off the end of a runway in 2005.

Worldwide, there were 37 other runway overruns.

And the causes of all these accidents

were remarkably similar.

There are a number of causal factors

that occur again and again in runway overrun accidents--

the weather conditions,

the state of the runway surface.

It can be wet, it can be icy, it can have snow on it.

Speed in excess of a normal approach speed

for the aircraft

that does not then bleed off as the aircraft attempts to land.

And these factors occur again and again

in runway overrun accidents.

Unlike the crash at Toronto,

some overruns are deadly.

This southwest airlines flight in Chicago slid off its runway

several months after the Air France crash.

A small child was killed

in a car that was driving on the nearby highway.

Many older airports, in particular in big cities

which have expanded out towards the airport

in the course of their growth,

are constrained in the area

that they can use for overruns.

You have to consider what happens

when the runway is contaminated--

snow, ice, standing water.

That will degrade the stopping performance of the airplane.

Add to that a tailwind component

which was existent at the time that Air France landed.

The International Civil Aviation Organization

recommends that every airport have a 984-foot safety zone

at the end of runways that handle international flights.

Canadian standards are a little less strict.

They call for a 200-foot overrun area

and recommend another 300 feet on top of that.

Runway 24 left meets the low end

of those recommendations.

There was another runway overrun accident

to the runway in Toronto,

which was very closely aligned with the runway

that is there at the moment,

in 1978, when a DC-9, an Air Canada DC-9

rejected a takeoff and ran into the ravine.

Well, the plane started to brake,

and then there was just nothing

and then we dropped over the edge.

There was about a 50-foot drop, I guess,

at the end of the runway.

We just went over the top, and then there was a heck of a bang

and people and seats all over the place.

Two people died in the 1978 accident.

A coroner's inquest after the crash

recommended that the gully be filled in, but it never was.

It's a steep ravine, it has about a 50-foot drop-off,

and when you take a large, complicated

and fragile piece of machinery like a commercial aircraft

and you drop it 50 feet, then it tends to break.

There is a possible solution to runway overruns.

But it's not being used in Toronto--

or many other international airports.

It's called EMAS--

or Engineered Material Arresting Systems.

It's a form of artificial stone or artificial gravel

which has a certain depth.

And anybody who's ridden a bicycle into a gravel pit

knows that the bicycle stops very quickly,

and it can be almost impossible to pedal it out.

And the same thing happens to airplanes.

Several airports in the U.S. use the system.

But most international airports do not.

It's very much more effective than friction braking,

and it's certainly incomparably more effective

than thrust reverse and spoilers.

And any one of these systems, when properly engineered,

can stop a large airplane,

no matter what the runway surface conditions,

in a very short distance.

We have to evacuate now!

But one vital air safety guideline was met

when flight 358 crashed.

In spite of the smoke and the spreading fire,

the crew of the crippled plane made sure

that all the passengers escaped in just 90 seconds.

It's just a miracle

that all of those people were able to evacuate the airplane

as quickly as they did before the airplane was consumed.

The Air France flight was particularly noteworthy

in that everybody got out essentially unscathed.

I know there were some injuries, but everyone got out.

So I think it was noteworthy,

and it was a very good evacuation

from that perspective.

Captain Alain Rosaye

may never fly for Air France again.

His injuries required extensive physical therapy

after the crash.

At the time, he was less than three years from retirement.

Every morning Captain Rosaye relives the experience,

coming face to face with the flames,

the noise, the crash.

And it made him sad to end his career on that note,

having destroyed his plane.

That's the worst possible fate for a pilot, the worst outcome.

The co-pilot, Frederic Naud,

is suspended for three months after the accident.

By early the next year, he is back on duty with Air France.

There are reports that, after he helped

Captain Rosaye out of the cockpit,

he was the last person off the plane.

The passengers deal with the crash in their own ways.

We really need to take seriously

those safety commands and evacuation information,

because you never know.

Thank goodness I'm here to be able to talk about it now.

Open the door!

Open the door!

There's a lot of negative in the accident,

and there's a lot of positive.

The negative is oh, my God, you know, I'm going to die,

oh, my God, it's horrible.

Oh, I have these nightmares.

However, you have the positives.

And the positives are: Gee, I'm alive, you know?

I have been given a second chance.

I have been given a second life.

And all of us,

my wife and my children, myself,

we all experience the same positive effects of the crash,

which is we have to give back.

We have to do something for others.

We have to extend our heart out,

our compassion to people who need it.

It's almost therapeutic for us, you know,

the more you do for others, the better you're gonna feel.

So, for me, I figured, you know,

if I can extend my heart out to others,

maybe it's gonna help me as well.