All survive Air France jet crash and fire

Everyone on board Air France Flight 358 survived after it slid into a gully and burned.

• Map: Pearson International Airport

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TORONTO, Canada (CNN) -- An Air France jetliner attempting to land at Toronto's Pearson International Airport overran a runway, smashed into a gully and burst into flames Tuesday afternoon.

All 297 passengers and 12 crew members survived the crash, Canadian authorities and the airline said.

Hospitals treated 24 people for minor injuries, said Steve Shaw, chairman of the Greater Toronto Airports Authority.

"I'm told the injuries were not serious," he said.

Gerard Power, a spokesman for the Humber River Regional Hospital in Toronto, said seven people were taken there for smoke inhalation.

Air France Flight 358 was arriving from Paris' Charles de Gaulle International Airport during a thunderstorm. Witnesses said it appeared lightning may have struck the plane.

The airport said it had issued a "red alert" ground stop during much of the afternoon before the crash "due to extreme weather conditions which resulted in the postponement of departing aircraft."

Two passengers told CNN the lights went out in the jetliner's cabin just before landing.

Roel Bramer, who was seated in the full aircraft's last row, said the plane "went up and down like a roller coaster" after it touched the runway and was already burning when it came to a stop.

Flight attendants quickly ushered passengers to emergency exit chutes, he said. "You don't think, you jump," Bramer said. Once on the ground, "I just ran like crazy through the fields over rocks and whatnot." (More accounts)

Corey Marx, who was watching planes land with his friend south of the tarmac, said, "Everything looked good, sounded good. It hit the runway nice, then all of a sudden we heard the engines backing up."

Marx said he initially didn't think anything was wrong. But then, "the guy I was with piped up, 'You know, he's getting pretty close to the end.' Immediately afterward, right off he went."

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