Toronto Jet Landed in Wrong Spot

The Air France jet that skidded into a ravine and burned this week landed farther down the runway than it should have, but it is too soon to know if that was the reason for the crash, aviation investigators said Friday.

All 309 people on board survived when Flight 358 from Paris crashed Tuesday at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport. The flight data and voice recorders were recovered the next day.

Real Levasseur, chief of Canada’s Transportation Safety Board team examining the aircraft, said officials in France who were downloading data from the cockpit voice recorders said Friday that most of the data had survived the fire.

Levasseur said all interviews with the co-pilot, who Air France said was at the controls during the landing, and cabin crew were complete.

“These people can now all go home to their families and loved ones, who I am sure have been very anxious to hold them again in their arms,” he said, praising them again for evacuating the plane in less than two minutes.

Veronique Brachet, an Air France spokeswoman, said the pilot remained in the hospital in Toronto with compressed vertebrae. She did not know whether the pilot had spoken with investigators.