Lisa Platt was returning to Toronto with a French alternate pupil on Air France flight 358 on Aug. 2, 2005.
At 15, Platt hadn’t travelled by air very a lot at that time and was having fun with the journey.
“We had been all excited, carrying headphones, listening to the identical music. It was an ideal day,” mentioned Platt.
Eddie Ho, age 19, was a enterprise pupil from South Africa attending Queen’s College in Kingston. He additionally mentioned the journey from Paris was memorable.
“The service was nice, the meals was nice, it was really a really fulfilling flight,” Ho mentioned.
Nevertheless it was a flight that ended with the airplane going up in flames after a disastrous touchdown, despite the fact that it initially appeared to passengers that the pilots would be capable of cease on the runway 24L at Pearson Worldwide Airport in Toronto.
“I felt a huge effect such as you had been on a roller-coaster,” mentioned Platt.
“The airplane was making its method down the runway and everyone began clapping. No one knew what was going to occur after that,” mentioned Ho.
Lisa Platt and Eddie Ho are pictured in downtown Toronto in July 2025.
Sean O’Shea/International Information
In response to the aviation investigation report by the Transportation Security Board of Canada, climate circumstances for the touchdown included “very darkish clouds, turbulence and heavy rain.”
“The runway was coated with water, producing a shiny, glass-like floor,” the report continued.
The Air France Airbus A340 touched down “3,800 toes down the 9,000 foot runway” and was not capable of cease, crash investigators concluded.
“It departed the top of the runway at a groundspeed of 80 knots (148 kilometres per hour) and got here to relaxation in a ravine,” the TSB report mentioned.
Seconds after the airplane got here to a cease, hearth was noticed out the left aspect of the plane and smoke was coming into the cabin, the report mentioned.
For passengers, together with Ho and Platt, it was clear they wanted to get out of the airplane instantly.
“Some individuals had been reaching up for his or her baggage and others who had been in the course of the airplane, they knew what was happening, and so they had been climbing over seats pushing individuals out,” mentioned Ho, who was seated within the economic system cabin simply behind the enterprise class part.
When Ho went to the closest exit to get out, he found that the emergency evacuation slide hadn’t deployed. He confronted a alternative: leap to the bottom and danger damage or search for one other method out.
“I made a decision to not danger the leap; I ran to the entrance to the primary exit on the left,” he mentioned.
On the second emergency exit, Ho mentioned he confronted one other problem.
“The chute got here out, but it surely didn’t inflate. However at that time I had no different alternative,” mentioned Ho, who jumped and sustained minor accidents.
“There have been passengers close to me who broke their hips, broke their legs, had rather more critical accidents.”
Platt, seated together with her pal towards the rear of the airplane, had a better time escaping.
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“My shoe popped off. I keep in mind grabbing my shoe with my hand pondering, ‘I’m going to wish this,’” Platt mentioned.
After descending on the escape slide, Platt noticed a passenger involved about what he left behind.
“I keep in mind a man in a brown swimsuit fearful about his baggage on the backside of the chute, and I believed, that’s not the suitable time to fret about your baggage,” Platt mentioned.
Police survey the location the place an Air France Airbus A340 jet slid off the runway and crashed at Toronto Pearson Worldwide Airport in Toronto, Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2005. All 309 passengers and crew aboard the Air France jet survived the crash Tuesday afternoon.
David Duprey/AP by way of CP
Ho, Platt, and others made it out of the airplane, however weren’t out of hazard but.
“My first thought was, now we have to get away from the airplane as a result of it’s going to blow up,” he mentioned.
“We have to get away.”
Ho mentioned he and one other man assisted an injured passenger mendacity on the bottom.
“(We had been) carrying him, simply attempting to tug him away from the airplane,” mentioned Ho.
About the identical time, Ho pulled out his Canon Powershot digital digital camera and rapidly grabbed just a few frames of the burning airplane as he moved away. On the time, sensible telephones hadn’t been invented and few individuals carried cameras on daily basis.
“I keep in mind taking a few pictures, I didn’t purpose or do something, I simply took it out and snap, snap,” mentioned Ho. Considered one of his photos was awarded the 2006 Canadian Press Image of the Yr within the information class.
Finally, Ho was transported to the Pearson air terminal the place he joined different airplane crash survivors who had been grouped collectively.
“They really thought it was a terrorist assault, in order that they didn’t let any passengers out,” Ho mentioned.
Although Ho and Platt had deserted their belongings within the plane, that truth didn’t stop customs officers from desirous to know what that they had introduced again from Europe.
“I nonetheless keep in mind the customs of us, CBSA (Canada Border Companies Company) got here out and requested me a number of instances: ‘Do you have got something to declare,’” and insisted he signal a declaration card.
“I had nothing to declare,” Ho mentioned.
Platt mentioned she, too was requested to make a declaration.
“They had been simply doing their jobs,” she mentioned.
With information of the Air France crash making headlines world wide, Platt wished to let her household know she was all proper.
She reached her mom by phone.
“I used to be like, ‘Mother, it’s me, it’s Lisa,’ recalling how her mom appeared stunned and possibly relieved to listen to her voice.
Late that night, Platt and others had been allowed to depart after the airline had accounted for all of the passengers and crew members.
“We had been fairly positive there have been fatalities,” mentioned Ho, recounting what he felt within the hours after the crash.
Lisa Platt exhibits a tattoo on her ankle of AF 358, the variety of an Air France flight that crashed at Toronto Pearson Worldwide Airport on Aug. 2, 2005.
To the shock of many who had been onboard, all 297 passengers and 12 crew members had made it out safely.
Everybody survived.
However rapidly, many passengers would begin coping with the aftermath.
“It was exhausting, I feel it was the subsequent day when all of it hit me,” mentioned Platt.
Within the months and years forward, the survivors would come to phrases with what that they had gone by that afternoon within the driving rain and lightning on the finish of the runway.
Ho and Platt skilled post-traumatic stress dysfunction (PTSD) and sought assist from therapists for a few 12 months.
“I keep in mind I began to get nightmares, and I slowly didn’t wish to be on buses, I didn’t wish to be in vehicles,” mentioned Platt.
To at the present time, Platt says she should be the one driving a car in a rainstorm.
On the finish of her counselling classes, Platt says her therapist would maintain her toes for about 5 minutes, encouraging her to remain grounded.
Platt later had the Air France flight quantity, AF 358, tattooed on her ankle, a each day reminder of what she had survived.
Air France offered a free, return journey to each passenger on the ill-fated flight. Platt selected to journey again to Paris and to return to Toronto precisely one 12 months afterward the identical day and flight.
“I cried and also you grip tougher than you usually grip,” she mentioned, referring to holding to the armrests.
Years later, Platt went on to pursue a profession that could be thought-about uncommon for an air crash survivor.
“I believed, ‘I need to be a flight attendant, I need to get on these planes and I can do that,’” Platt mentioned.
After initially working as a customer support consultant, Platt acquired a job as a flight attendant with Porter Airways. She spent virtually ten years with the corporate flying out and in of Toronto earlier than pursuing one other profession.
Eddie Ho completed his college training and have become a chartered skilled account in Toronto.
He says he took first flight a 12 months after the crash but it surely took about 5 years earlier than he stopped occupied with the crash when he boarded airplane.
As a frequent flyer for work, Ho says he tried to place different jittery flyers comfy when he can.
“Typically it’s a passenger subsequent to me and so they’re afraid of flying,” mentioned Ho.
“‘I’ll give them help straight away, don’t fear, will probably be high-quality,” he tells nervous passengers.
Ho holds one thing again, nonetheless.
“I don’t inform them that I’ve been in a airplane accident. I normally inform them afterward,” mentioned Ho.
Ho lets individuals know that crash survivors don’t get free perks past that preliminary free flight.
“The tales that you simply get free, limitless journey for the remainder of your life or free elite standing for the remainder of your life, no, that doesn’t occur,” he mentioned.
Ho mentioned the crash has influenced how he approaches life.
“I’ve a mindset of — how can I assist others?” and says he doesn’t maintain grudges because of the crash.
Equally, Platt recollects how lucky she is to have escaped loss of life 20 years in the past.
“I’ve numerous gratitude. I’m very grateful we made it out okay,” mentioned Platt.
“For me, issues could have been totally different if we didn’t all survive.”
