TORONTO: When the wheels of Air France flight 358 finally touched the runway at Pearson International Airport at 4:02pm on Tuesday, dozens of passengers burst into spontaneous applause. Their outburst was a mixture of relief and nervous adrenaline after the plane, en route from Paris, had navigated through a pounding storm and streaks of lightning. The respite was short-lived.

“When we touched the ground, people were clapping and cheering because we thought it was going to be a fine landing. Seconds later, we skidded off the runway and it was chaos,” said Eddie Ho, 19, a Canadian student returning from South Africa via Paris.

“Lockers swung open, bags came falling down, ceiling tiles came off. You were just sitting there like a rag doll. All I could do was pray,” he said at the airport on Wednesday. As investigators and air safety officials began sifting through wreckage of the A340 Airbus, the full story of the amazing escape of all 309 people on board began to emerge from passengers and rescue workers. The crash, in which the jetliner skidded off the runway and into a ravine, left 43 people with minor injuries, officials said. Fourteen were still in the hospital on Wednesday.

At first, the atmosphere on board was relatively orderly — until passengers began to smell smoke and see flames rising outside the windows.

“The first five seconds after the plane stopped, people were very calm. They were actually quite decent, until they started seeing the fire. Then they started screaming. . . and all hell broke loose,” said Olivier Dubois, who was returning from his sister’s wedding in Paris.

“The flight attendants started shouting, ‘jump out, jump out.’ It was chaotic,” he said. People were climbing over seats, parents were clinging to children, and some even tried to grab their luggage, Dubois said.

While officials praised the Air France flight crew for evacuating all the passengers rapidly, some on board said a number of problems had held up the evacuation. Some passengers were confused by an announcement over the public address system that everyone should stay in their seats after the plane had stopped. Several had already started to smell smoke.

“I didn’t breathe the smoke. I clutched my teddy against my nose,” Lucas Guardascione, a boy of 7 travelling with his father, told reporters. —Dawn/The Washington Post News Service