Sun, August 7, 2005
Crew of doomed flight returns home
By VERONICA HENRI, Sun Media
Aboard Air France flight 359 -- Peering through the tiny oval windows, crew members tried for one last glimpse of the burned wreckage they walked away from on Tuesday.
They were on their way home to Paris Friday night, the wreckage of Flight 358 still the focus of a meticulous investigation, but their ordeal in Toronto was over.
They sipped champagne and relaxed in luxurious leather seats while scoping out the scene below as they rapidly ascended into the sky.
The crew talked in French about "sadness" and "losing barometric pressure" as they got their last -- and possibly first -- glimpse since amazingly walking away from the crash landing at the end of Runway 24L.
A matronly woman, wearing a conservative skirt and printed blouse, moved from crew member to crew member, looking them in the eyes, and comforting and consoling them throughout the flight.
Wearing their street clothes so they looked like any other passenger, they laughed and used their cellphones to take pictures of each other before getting down to business of filling out endless forms on Air France letterhead.
But afterwards, there was plenty of time to relax on the way home.
They ate meals of duck foie gras terrine, Camembert cheese with baguettes and filet de boeuf as they watched movies on personal screens while sipping wine.
Their uniformed co-workers attended to their every need, often indulging in long conversations, sitting by their sides -- just as they had done to passengers on the flight to Toronto days ago.
After a nap, one male crew member opened the French newspaper Le Parisien.
The headlines read: "Crash de Toronto. Polemique sur l'ouverture de l'aeroport" roughly translated as: Toronto crash: The debate on opening the airport.
A half hour from Paris preparations began for their arrival at Charles de Gaulle airport.
As the gates opened, security forces in bright green jackets filled the plane's exit ramp.
All regular passengers would disembark before Air France's precious cargo -- the crew members of Flight 358 -- were released.
They did not leave with the others. Holding passports in one hand and luggage in the other, they would not be released to face awaiting TV crews, photographers and reporters outside the gate.
Instead, they slipped quietly and unnoticed down a metal stairway directly from the plane to the tarmac, where a bus carried them on the last leg of their journey -- off to waiting families and colleagues who would hail them as heroes, while investigators continue to search for the answers to what happened on that fateful flight to Toronto