'All I Could Do Was Pray'

"I didn't breathe the smoke. I clutched my teddy against my nose," Lucas Guardascione, a boy of 7 traveling with his father, told Agence France-Presse.

At least one of the inflatable slides failed to open, according to those on board, while another became tangled during activation. This meant some passengers were urged to jump from heights of up to 15 feet to leave the plane.

Most injuries appeared to have occurred while people were leaving the plane.

Ho said he headed for an emergency exit near his seat, but found there was no slide attached to it. Despite prompting from the cabin crew, he refused to jump and eventually found another exit.

"There were two old ladies who were being urged to jump but were hesitating," he said. "There was a man underneath them trying to grab them."

Mike Figliola, the airport fire chief, said the flight crew safely evacuated all the passengers before the plane became engulfed in flames, three minutes after landing. He said fire crews arrived within 52 seconds of being alerted, by which time three-quarters of the passengers had been evacuated to a field.

Fearing the fire could ignite the fuel tank, some started running south toward Highway A401, one of Toronto's busiest roads. Cars had slowed to watch the drama, and passengers flagged them down, asking for rides to the airport.

The flames were so intense that the embers were only fully doused Wednesday, Figliola said. "My face was burning," he said, "and I was 50 yards away."

Figliola said the flight crew "did a great job; they're trained to get the people off."

The chairman of Air France, Jean-Cyril Spinetta, told reporters in France: "I don't know if we should speak of a miracle, but we can certainly speak of . . . the professionalism of the crew."

Passengers said the flight had been uneventful until they approached Toronto, when they could see a storm gathering as they prepared to land.

"Even though it was still daytime, the clouds made it so dark that it looked like night," Dubois said.