Survivors recall frantic escape 20 years after Air France crash in Toronto
Lisa Platt was returning to Toronto with a French exchange student on Air France flight 358 on Aug. 2, 2005.
At 15, Platt hadn’t travelled by air very much at that point and was enjoying the trip.
“We were all excited, wearing headphones, listening to the same music. It was a great day,” said Platt.
Eddie Ho, age 19, was a business student from South Africa attending Queen’s University in Kingston. He also said the trip from Paris was memorable.
“The service was great, the food was great, it was actually a very enjoyable flight,” Ho said.
But it was a flight that ended with the plane going up in flames after a disastrous landing, even though it initially appeared to passengers that the pilots would be able to stop on the runway 24L at Pearson International Airport in Toronto.
“I felt a huge impact like you were on a roller-coaster,” said Platt.
“The plane was making its way down the runway and everybody started clapping. Nobody knew what was going to happen after that,” said Ho.
Lisa Platt and Eddie Ho are pictured in downtown Toronto in July 2025.
Sean O’Shea/Global News
According to the aviation investigation report by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, weather conditions for the landing included “very dark clouds, turbulence and heavy rain.”
“The runway was covered with water, producing a shiny, glass-like surface,” the report continued.
The Air France Airbus A340 touched down “3,800 feet down the 9,000 foot runway” and was not able to stop, crash investigators concluded.
“It departed the end of the runway at a groundspeed of 80 knots (148 kilometres per hour) and came to rest in a ravine,” the TSB report said.
Seconds after the plane came to a stop, fire was observed out the left side of the aircraft and smoke was entering the cabin, the report said.
For passengers, including Ho and Platt, it was clear they needed to get out of the plane immediately.
“Some people were reaching up for their bags and others who were in the middle of the plane, they knew what was going on, and they were climbing over seats pushing people out,” said Ho, who was seated in the economy cabin just behind the business class section.
When Ho went to the nearest exit to get out, he discovered that the emergency evacuation slide hadn’t deployed. He faced a choice: jump to the ground and risk injury or look for another way out.
“I decided not to risk the jump; I ran to the front to the first exit on the left,” he said.
At the second emergency exit, Ho said he faced another challenge.
“The chute came out, but it did not inflate. But at that point I had no other choice,” said Ho, who jumped and sustained minor injuries.
“There were passengers near me who broke their hips, broke their legs, had much more serious injuries.”
Platt, seated with her friend toward the rear of the plane, had an easier time escaping.
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“My shoe popped off. I remember grabbing my shoe with my hand thinking, ‘I’m going to need this,’” Platt said.
After descending on the escape slide, Platt observed a passenger concerned about what he left behind.
“I remember a guy in a brown suit worried about his luggage at the bottom of the chute, and I thought, that’s not the right time to worry about your luggage,” Platt said.
Police survey the site where an Air France Airbus A340 jet slid off the runway and crashed at Toronto Pearson International 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 via CP
Ho, Platt, and others made it out of the plane, but weren’t out of danger yet.
“My first thought was, we have to get away from the plane because it’s going to explode,” he said.
“We need to get away.”
Ho said he and another man assisted an injured passenger lying on the ground.
“(We were) carrying him, just trying to drag him away from the plane,” said Ho.
About the same time, Ho pulled out his Canon Powershot digital camera and quickly grabbed a few frames of the burning airplane as he moved away. At the time, smart phones hadn’t been invented and few people carried cameras every day.
“I remember taking a couple of shots, I didn’t aim or do anything, I just took it out and snap, snap,” said Ho. One of his pictures was awarded the 2006 Canadian Press Picture of the Year in the news category.
Eventually, Ho was transported to the Pearson air terminal where he joined other plane crash survivors who were grouped together.
“They actually thought it was a terrorist attack, so they didn’t let any passengers out,” Ho said.
Even though Ho and Platt had abandoned their belongings in the aircraft, that fact didn’t prevent customs officers from wanting to know what they had brought back from Europe.
“I still remember the customs folks, CBSA (Canada Border Services Agency) came out and asked me multiple times: ‘Do you have anything to declare,’” and insisted he sign a declaration card.
“I had nothing to declare,” Ho said.
Platt said she, too was asked to make a declaration.
“They were just doing their jobs,” she said.
With news of the Air France crash making headlines around the world, Platt wanted to let her family know she was all right.
She reached her mother by telephone.
“I was like, ‘Mom, it’s me, it’s Lisa,’ recalling how her mother appeared surprised and probably relieved to hear her voice.
Late that evening, Platt and others were allowed to leave after the airline had accounted for all the passengers and crew members.
“We were pretty sure there were fatalities,” said Ho, recounting what he felt in the hours after the crash.
Lisa Platt shows a tattoo on her ankle of AF 358, the number of an Air France flight that crashed at Toronto Pearson International Airport on Aug. 2, 2005.
To the surprise of many who were onboard, all 297 passengers and 12 crew members had made it out safely.
Everyone survived.
But quickly, many passengers would start dealing with the aftermath.
“It was exhausting, I think it was the next day when it all hit me,” said Platt.
In the months and years ahead, the survivors would come to terms with what they had gone through that afternoon in the driving rain and lightning at the end of the runway.
Ho and Platt experienced post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and sought help from therapists for about a year.
“I remember I started to get nightmares, and I slowly didn’t like to be on buses, I didn’t like to be in cars,” said Platt.
To this day, Platt says she must be the one driving a vehicle in a rainstorm.
At the end of her counselling sessions, Platt says her therapist would hold her feet for about five minutes, encouraging her to stay grounded.
Platt later had the Air France flight number, AF 358, tattooed on her ankle, a daily reminder of what she had survived.
Air France provided a free, return trip to every passenger on the ill-fated flight. Platt chose to travel back to Paris and to return to Toronto exactly one year later on the same day and flight.
“I cried and you grip harder than you normally grip,” she said, referring to holding to the armrests.
Years later, Platt went on to pursue a career that might be considered unusual for an air crash survivor.
“I thought, ‘I want to be a flight attendant, I want to get on these planes and I can do this,’” Platt said.
After initially working as a customer service representative, Platt got a job as a flight attendant with Porter Airlines. She spent almost ten years with the company flying in and out of Toronto before pursuing another career.
Eddie Ho finished his university education and became a chartered professional account in Toronto.
He says he took first flight a year after the crash but it took about five years before he stopped thinking about the crash when he boarded plane.
As a frequent flyer for work, Ho says he tried to put other jittery flyers at ease when he can.
“Sometimes it’s a passenger next to me and they’re afraid of flying,” said Ho.
“‘I’ll give them support right away, don’t worry, it will be fine,” he tells nervous passengers.
Ho holds something back, however.
“I don’t tell them that I’ve been in a plane accident. I usually tell them afterward,” said Ho.
Ho lets people know that crash survivors don’t get free perks beyond that initial free flight.
“The stories that you get free, unlimited travel for the rest of your life or free elite status for the rest of your life, no, that doesn’t happen,” he said.
Ho said the crash has influenced how he approaches life.
“I have a mindset of — how can I help others?” and says he does not hold grudges as a result of the crash.
Similarly, Platt recalls how fortunate she is to have escaped death 20 years ago.
“I have a lot of gratitude. I am very thankful we made it out okay,” said Platt.
“For me, things may have been different if we didn’t all survive.”
A Canadian man has pleaded guilty to illegally photographing classified U.S. defence facilities at the Space Force military base in Cape Canaveral, Fla.
Xiao Guang Pan, 71, of Brampton, Ont., pleaded guilty to three counts of unlawful photographing of military installations without authorization on three separate days in early January.
A U.S. District Court in Florida judge put Pan on probation for 12 months and immediately ordered him deported to Canada by U.S. Immigration and Citizenship Enforcement (ICE) officers under the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act, citing his violations of American espionage laws.
Pan did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A U.S. Department of Justice official was unsure about where Pan is in the ICE deportation process.
Pan’s guilty plea and deportation come as anxiety grows among U.S. lawmakers and ordinary Americans about hundreds of unidentified drones flying over sensitive American military bases amid concerns about foreign surveillance and spying.
A copy of Pan’s plea agreement reveals a stark contrast between what Pan said he was doing in Florida in January, when he was stopped by police, versus what U.S. federal agents actually found on his drone, phone and storage devices after seizing them.
On an artist biography page published by the Brampton Arts Organization, Pan stated he was born in China in 1953, immigrated to Canada in 2001 and has lived in Brampton since 2003.
Pan worked as a Best Buy Canada technician for 18 years until retirement in 2022, the biography adds.
Pan entered U.S. via Detroit
Pan entered the U.S. on a tourist visa at the Ambassador’s Bridge in Detroit, Mich., on or about Nov. 2, 2024. The court documents don’t suggest what Pan was doing or where Pan travelled in November and December.
The retiree was charged by summons on Feb. 11 after the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) detected drone activity near the Space Force Base and called in law enforcement on Jan. 7.
Brevard County Sheriffs responded. They saw Pan operating a DJI Mavic Pro 3 unmanned drone quadcopter from a parking lot in Port Canaveral and learned he’d been in the area for three days.
The local officers then tipped federal law enforcement agencies.
Federal agents caught the Brampton resident using his powerful unmanned drone and a separate camera with telephoto lenses to photograph and video classified military facilities and equipment near the Space Force base on Jan. 5, 6 and 7, without the base commander’s prior authorization as required under U.S. law.
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According to a statement of facts found in the plea agreement, which Pan signed and initialled on every page, U.S. federal agents interviewed him twice – no dates were given – and asked the Canadian what he was doing with the drone.
They also warned him: lying to federal agents is a federal crime in the U.S.
“Pan told the agents that he had flown his drone to take pictures of the beauty of nature, the sunrise, and the cruise ship port. He stated that he had not seen any launch pads and that he did not know that he was near a military installation,” the plea deal states.
Pan voluntarily submitted his devices to U.S. agents for a forensic data extraction.
That’s when the investigators found more than sunrises, nature and cruise ship videos.
The data showed Pan had flown his drone nine times and taken 1,919 photographs and videos during his three-day Florida visit, the plea deal states.
Of those 1,919 photos and videos, 243 photographs and 13 videos showed specific images of Space Force base military infrastructure and launch facilities, including fuel and munitions storage facilities, security checkpoints, and a Navy submarine platform, according to the plea agreement.
On Jan. 6, his second day of flying the drone quadcopter, Pan took nine videos and 166 photographs of Space Force installations.
This time, he launched his drone from a location several miles closer to the base; his photographs and videos captured the same military infrastructure as on Jan. 5, but in higher quality and from different angles, according to the plea agreement.
Pan also captured images and videos of mission control infrastructure and fuel and munitions facilities, including a photograph of a Space Launch Complex and payload processing facilities operated by two defence contractors.
On the third day of his drone flying, and before he was encountered by law enforcement, Pan recorded two more videos and took 56 photos.
Day 3 images included security checkpoints
His Day 3 images and videos showed roads, power distribution infrastructure, security checkpoints, mission control infrastructure, national security space launch infrastructure, fuel and munitions storage, and naval infrastructure, the plea agreement states.
After police stopped Pan on Jan. 7, federal agents interviewed him twice.
During those interviews, Pan was warned that lying to agents is a federal crime. He did so anyway, the plea deal suggests.
In addition to telling agents he flew his drone to record nature, sunrises, and cruise ships and didn’t know he was near a military base, Pan said his drone sends alerts and warnings to his handset and he received no alerts or warnings, the plea deal adds.
Investigators recovered flight log data from Pan’s quadcopter. It showed that on all three days he flew, the drone logged several alerts and sent operator messages about altitude and FAA airspace violations.
On Pan’s cell phone, agents also found several screenshots he created, including several Google Maps satellite overviews of Cape Canaveral. One screenshot taken Jan. 7 while Pan was at his drone launch location, prominently displayed the words “Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.”
Pan surrendered his $5,000 quadcopter
Pan was charged in February after a multi-agency probe led by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Homeland Security, and the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations.
Pan surrendered his $5,000 quadcopter, control equipment and storage devices that housed his videos and photos to the U.S. authorities.
He is also banned from returning to the U.S. without prior consent from the Secretary of the Homeland Security department.
TORONTO – An old bat was a difference-maker for the Toronto Blue Jays in a wild 9-8 victory over the Minnesota Twins on Wednesday night.
Ty France sparked an eighth-inning rally with a solo homer and Addison Barger emerged from a 2-for-30 slump with a two-run double to help the Blue Jays to their AL-best 40th comeback win of the year.
Barger said France “randomly decided” to use one of his old bats from the cage before his pinch-hit appearance.
“I haven’t seen the bat since last year and he had a homer with it,” Barger said. “And I was like, ‘Oh shoot, I’m going to use that.’ And it worked.”
Barger lined a slider from Michael Tonkin (2-1) off the top of the wall in right field to bring home Alejandro Kirk with the tying run and George Springer from first base with the go-ahead run.
Seranthony Dominguez (3-4) got two outs in the eighth inning for the win and closer Jeff Hoffman worked the ninth for his 29th save as Toronto (78-56) took the rubber game of the three-game series.
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Toronto improved its record at Rogers Centre to 44-22, the best home mark in Major League Baseball at the end of the game.
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Barger became a regular in the lineup early in the season after providing consistent pop at the plate. Despite his struggles in recent weeks, he remains unfazed by late-game pressure.
With runners in scoring position in the seventh inning or later this season, Barger is hitting .389 with a 1.161 OPS (on-base plus slugging).
“Addy’s got talent,” said Blue Jays manager John Schneider. “He can do that. We’ve seen him do that, we’ve seen him hit home runs.
“I think it’s just the natural course of the season for a young guy and I think he’s navigating it pretty well.”
On the mound, Schneider went right back to Hoffman a night after he gave up two homers and blew his seventh save of the season.
“It’s like a quarterback throwing an interception,” Schneider said. “You’ve got to have a short memory and you’ve got to move on to the next thing. And you know, Hoff, like everybody else on this team, they move on to the next thing.”
The game had eight solo homers — four from each team — and Toronto clawed back from three deficits before taking its first lead in the eighth.
Only the Los Angeles Dodgers (41) have had more comeback wins.
“These guys do not quit,” Schneider said. “They do not give a (crap) who they’re playing against. They don’t care what the situation is. I love it.”
Andres Gimenez and Davis Schneider, with a pair, also went deep for Toronto. Byron Buxton, with two, Luke Keaschall and Brooks Lee homered for the Twins (60-73).
Toronto starter Eric Lauer allowed six earned runs and 10 hits over 4 2/3 innings. He had four strikeouts.
Minnesota starter Simeon Woods Richardson gave up five earned runs and five hits over 3 2/3 frames. He walked a pair and fanned two.
Toronto maintained its four-game lead on Boston in the American League East Division standings. The Red Sox edged Baltimore 3-2.
The Blue Jays will continue their six-game homestand Friday night against the MLB-leading Milwaukee Brewers. Shane Bieber (1-0, 1.50 earned-run average) is tabbed to start for Toronto.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 27, 2025.
© 2025 The Canadian Press
TORONTO – Addison Barger hit a two-run double in Toronto’s three-run eighth inning as the Blue Jays came back for a 9-8 win over the Minnesota Twins on Wednesday night.
Barger drove a ball into the right-centre field gap to score Alejandro Kirk with the tying run and George Springer with the go-ahead run.
Seranthony Dominguez (3-4) got two outs in the eighth inning for the win and closer Jeff Hoffman worked the ninth for his 29th save as Toronto took the rubber game of the three-game series.
Each team hit four home runs. All eight blasts were solo shots.
Related Videos
Davis Schneider, with a pair, Andres Gimenez and Ty France, who hit a pinch-hit homer to start the rally in the eighth, went deep for Toronto (78-56).
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Byron Buxton, with two, Luke Keaschall and Brooks Lee went deep for the Twins (60-73).
Toronto starter Eric Lauer allowed six earned runs and 10 hits over 4 2/3 innings. He had four strikeouts.
Minnesota starter Simeon Woods Richardson gave up five earned runs and five hits over 3 2/3 frames. He walked a pair and fanned two.
Michael Tonkin (2-1) blew the save and took the loss.
Toronto maintained its four-game lead on Boston in the American League East Division standings. The Red Sox edged Baltimore 3-2.
KEY MOMENT
Blue Jays centre-fielder Daulton Varsho put a charge into the sellout crowd of 42,361 with his catch against the wall in the second inning. He made another brilliant catch in virtually the same spot in the third.
KEY STAT
Toronto owns the best home record in the AL at 44-22.
UP NEXT
The Blue Jays will continue their six-game homestand Friday against the Milwaukee Brewers. Shane Bieber (1-0, 1.50 earned-run average) has been tabbed to start for Toronto.
The Twins will return home for a seven-game homestand starting Friday against the San Diego Padres.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 27, 2025.
© 2025 The Canadian Press
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