Investigators recovered the black box flight recorders last night from the Air France plane that crashed and burned in a Toronto thunderstorm on Tuesday.
All 309 passengers and crew survived after the Airbus A340 overshot the runway and burst into flames as it landed at Toronto's Pearson International Airport on Tuesday.
A tour of the site showed the plane had been reduced to a burned-out carcass, with pieces of wing and a gleaming, white nose still visible among the wreckage. Skid marks in the grass led to where the aircraft came to a final stop.
Canadian Transport Minister Jean Lapierre
The flight data and cockpit voice recorders with important data about the aircraft's final moments were found with some fire damage but in good condition and were being decoded at a laboratory, Canada's Transportation Safety Board said.
"Extreme weather conditions are one factor that [the investigators] will be considering, but they have access to a great deal of other information that will be relevant to their work," said Canadian Transport Minister Jean Lapierre. "We have been extremely lucky to not have had a single loss of life in that accident."
Mr Lapierre said he had initially been told 200 people had died in the crash. "It's a miracle," he said.
Some 42 people were taken to the hospital with minor injuries, most of them sustained as they fled the burning plane down emergency chutes. Air France said 14 were still in hospital yesterday afternoon.
Passengers reported seeing flames outside the plane and smoke inside it, and one said there had been a textbook evacuation by the Air France cabin crew.