I was sound asleep when today when someone started pounding on my window.

It’s easier than going to the door because I sleep deeply. It was an urgent pounding so I bounced from horizontal to vertical in seconds.
They came by to let me know that an Air France Airbus had gone off the runway at Pearson International in Toronto.

While they flipped on the TV, I made coffee, and the phone call to see if we were on standby or required.

I hate to admit it, but once we knew everyone on board was safe, that there had been 14 injured, triaged on site with a couple heading to hospital, we flipped over to CCN, and started to laugh at the coverage.
They were using the Canadian video feed, and their own audio.
Global, CBC and CTV had all their local reporters out. It’s a tough job. Information comes in slowly and there is air time to fill.
It was getting repetitive on the Canadian stations and CNN coverage was really poor.
I clicked over to the Pearson International site online and was surprised to see how updated they were. They have to be.

I could see by the footage on TV everyone was doing their job, right down to the ambulances and police that are dispatched to the major highway.
When there is an incident, secondary problems can become major. It’s rush hour, people don’t think, they slow down to gawk, or stop to help, and expecting accidents is part of the job for emergency personnel.
Dazed passengers wandered over to the highway, where motorists stopped to pick them up and take them back to the airport or for medical care.

We are hundreds of kilometers away but are a take-in area for diverted flights. Depending on the planes, their fuel loads, and the situation, Toronto bound flights would go to hubs like Montreal, Winnipeg, Trenton, Ottawa and here.

I got called back, picked up, and while we went up to the airport, listened in on our emergency channel and the scanner.
Everything was quiet.

There were six planes, with about 700 people inside them, waiting to hear whether they’d fly into Toronto, be bused elsewhere, or disembarked.
Five were domestic flights, one international.

We weren’t needed, so we all went for coffee. As much as I am used to being a reporter or working with EMO, my first thought is always the people. While I’m thinking about them, my thoughts kick in other ways. How broadcasters work. What we need to do with EMO or communications.
The Air France plane skidded into the green zone, the ravine buffer between the airport, it’s runway’s and the community. It’s amazing no one was killed. A few hundred metres either way…

The first flight diverted here was taking off just as I got home. As I watched it banking low out of the airport, shining in the sunset, I thought of the people that survived a crash, and literally walked away from it. I thought of the travellers that sat on tarmarks, missed flights, and were probably hungry and tired and thinking about their families.

Compared to the 297 passengers and 12 crew on Air France, diverting was a minor inconvenience, but an uncomfortable one none the less.

It was a perfect summer day were I live and I got thinking about how fast and how far we can travel and how quickly things can change.