No scapegoat: how aviation learns from every accident

Faced with an emergency evacuation? Keep your good shoes on, writes Simon Calder, but leave that cabin baggage behind

- Simon Calder

"The aircraft crossed the service road, then Convair Drive - the landing gear, and two inboard engines leaving gouges in the pavement of Convair Drive. The aircraft knocked down the guard rail along the western side of Convair Drive and the fourth approach light tower." So said the Transportation Safety Board of Canada after a crash at Toronto airport - not Monday's accident involving a Delta Airlines plane, but an incident at the same hub two decades earlier.

The terrifying ordeal of the 80 passengers and crew on board DL4819 from Minneapolis-St Paul to Canada’s busiest airport is now under investigation. I will not speculate on possible causes that flipped the plane on its roof; the experts are on the case. But I have been looking back two decades for lessons from the last incident in which an aircraft was destroyed at Toronto airport: Air France flight AF358 in August 2005.

The accident report reads: “The aircraft was not able to stop on the 9,000ft runway and departed the far end at a ground speed of about 80 knots [92mph]. The aircraft stopped in a ravine and caught fire.”

As with many air crashes, a host of factors came together to cause the accident – including pilots’ concern about fuel reserves. The accident report concludes: “Having made their decision to land, the crew members used all their energy to concentrate on this task and missed cues that should have warranted a review of that decision.”