Lisa Platt was returning to Toronto with a French exchange student on Air France flight 358 on Aug. 2, 2005.

At 15, Platt hadn’t travelled by air very much at that point and was enjoying the trip.

“We were all excited, wearing headphones, listening to the same music. It was a great day,” said Platt.

Eddie Ho, age 19, was a business student from South Africa attending Queen’s University in Kingston. He also said the trip from Paris was memorable.

“The service was great, the food was great, it was actually a very enjoyable flight,” Ho said.

But it was a flight that ended with the plane going up in flames after a disastrous landing, even though it initially appeared to passengers that the pilots would be able to stop on the runway 24L at Pearson International Airport in Toronto.

“I felt a huge impact like you were on a roller-coaster,” said Platt.

“The plane was making its way down the runway and everybody started clapping. Nobody knew what was going to happen after that,” said Ho.

According to the aviation investigation report by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, weather conditions for the landing included “very dark clouds, turbulence and heavy rain.”

“The runway was covered with water, producing a shiny, glass-like surface,” the report continued.

The Air France Airbus A340 touched down “3,800 feet down the 9,000 foot runway” and was not able to stop, crash investigators concluded.

“It departed the end of the runway at a groundspeed of 80 knots (148 kilometres per hour) and came to rest in a ravine,” the TSB report said.

Seconds after the plane came to a stop, fire was observed out the left side of the aircraft and smoke was entering the cabin, the report said.

For passengers, including Ho and Platt, it was clear they needed to get out of the plane immediately.

“Some people were reaching up for their bags and others who were in the middle of the plane, they knew what was going on, and they were climbing over seats pushing people out,” said Ho, who was seated in the economy cabin just behind the business class section.

When Ho went to the nearest exit to get out, he discovered that the emergency evacuation slide hadn’t deployed. He faced a choice: jump to the ground and risk injury or look for another way out.

“I decided not to risk the jump; I ran to the front to the first exit on the left,” he said.

At the second emergency exit, Ho said he faced another challenge.

“The chute came out, but it did not inflate. But at that point I had no other choice,” said Ho, who jumped and sustained minor injuries.

“There were passengers near me who broke their hips, broke their legs, had much more serious injuries.”

Platt, seated with her friend toward the rear of the plane, had an easier time escaping.

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“My shoe popped off. I remember grabbing my shoe with my hand thinking, ‘I’m going to need this,’” Platt said.

After descending on the escape slide, Platt observed a passenger concerned about what he left behind.

“I remember a guy in a brown suit worried about his luggage at the bottom of the chute, and I thought, that’s not the right time to worry about your luggage,” Platt said.

Ho, Platt, and others made it out of the plane, but weren’t out of danger yet.

“My first thought was, we have to get away from the plane because it’s going to explode,” he said.

“We need to get away.”

Ho said he and another man assisted an injured passenger lying on the ground.

“(We were) carrying him, just trying to drag him away from the plane,” said Ho.

About the same time, Ho pulled out his Canon Powershot digital camera and quickly grabbed a few frames of the burning airplane as he moved away. At the time, smart phones hadn’t been invented and few people carried cameras every day.

“I remember taking a couple of shots, I didn’t aim or do anything, I just took it out and snap, snap,” said Ho. One of his pictures was awarded the 2006 Canadian Press Picture of the Year in the news category.

Eventually, Ho was transported to the Pearson air terminal where he joined other plane crash survivors who were grouped together.

“They actually thought it was a terrorist attack, so they didn’t let any passengers out,” Ho said.

Even though Ho and Platt had abandoned their belongings in the aircraft, that fact didn’t prevent customs officers from wanting to know what they had brought back from Europe.

“I still remember the customs folks, CBSA (Canada Border Services Agency) came out and asked me multiple times: ‘Do you have anything to declare,’” and insisted he sign a declaration card.

“I had nothing to declare,” Ho said.

Platt said she, too was asked to make a declaration.

“They were just doing their jobs,” she said.

With news of the Air France crash making headlines around the world, Platt wanted to let her family know she was all right.

She reached her mother by telephone.

“I was like, ‘Mom, it’s me, it’s Lisa,’ recalling how her mother appeared surprised and probably relieved to hear her voice.

Late that evening, Platt and others were allowed to leave after the airline had accounted for all the passengers and crew members.

“We were pretty sure there were fatalities,” said Ho, recounting what he felt in the hours after the crash.

To the surprise of many who were onboard, all 297 passengers and 12 crew members had made it out safely.

Everyone survived.

But quickly, many passengers would start dealing with the aftermath.

“It was exhausting, I think it was the next day when it all hit me,” said Platt.

In the months and years ahead, the survivors would come to terms with what they had gone through that afternoon in the driving rain and lightning at the end of the runway.

Ho and Platt experienced post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and sought help from therapists for about a year.

“I remember I started to get nightmares, and I slowly didn’t like to be on buses, I didn’t like to be in cars,” said Platt.

To this day, Platt says she must be the one driving a vehicle in a rainstorm.

At the end of her counselling sessions, Platt says her therapist would hold her feet for about five minutes, encouraging her to stay grounded.

Platt later had the Air France flight number, AF 358, tattooed on her ankle, a daily reminder of what she had survived.

Air France provided a free, return trip to every passenger on the ill-fated flight. Platt chose to travel back to Paris and to return to Toronto exactly one year later on the same day and flight.

“I cried and you grip harder than you normally grip,” she said, referring to holding on to the armrests.

Years later, Platt went on to pursue a career that might be considered unusual for an air crash survivor.

“I thought, ‘I want to be a flight attendant, I want to get on these planes and I can do this,’” Platt said.

After initially working as a customer service representative, Platt got a job as a flight attendant with Porter Airlines. She spent almost ten years with the company flying in and out of Toronto before pursuing another career.

Eddie Ho finished his university education and became a chartered professional account in Toronto.

He says he took his first flight a year after the crash but it took about five years before he stopped thinking about the crash when he boarded a plane.

As a frequent flyer for work, Ho says he tries to put other jittery flyers at ease when he can.

“Sometimes it’s a passenger next to me and they’re afraid of flying,” said Ho.

“‘I’ll give them support right away, don’t worry, it will be fine,” he tells nervous passengers.

Ho holds something back, however.

“I don’t tell them that I’ve been in a plane accident. I usually tell them afterward,” said Ho.

Ho lets people know that crash survivors don’t get free perks beyond that initial free flight.

“The stories that you get free, unlimited travel for the rest of your life or free elite status for the rest of your life, no, that doesn’t happen,” he said.

Ho said the crash has influenced how he approaches life.

“I have a mindset of — how can I help others?” and says he does not hold grudges as a result of the crash.

Similarly, Platt recalls how fortunate she is to have escaped death 20 years ago.

“I have a lot of gratitude. I am very thankful we made it out okay,” said Platt.

“For me, things may have been different if we didn’t all survive.”

An Ontario judge is set to deliver his sentence this afternoon in the case of a teen girl found guilty of manslaughter in a deadly swarming attack on a homeless Toronto man.

The girl was 14 when she and seven other teens attacked Kenneth Lee in a downtown Toronto parkette in December 2022. The 59-year-old died in hospital after undergoing emergency surgery.

All eight girls were charged with second-degree murder, and seven ended up pleading guilty to lesser charges — five to manslaughter, one to assault and one to assault with a weapon and assault causing bodily harm.

This girl also tried to plead guilty to manslaughter as her trial began earlier this year, but the Crown rejected her plea.

Months later, Ontario Justice Philip Campbell found her not guilty of second-degree murder but guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter.

Prosecutors initially said they would ask for the girl to spend some time in custody as part of her sentence but changed course earlier this week, instead arguing for a 16-month probation sentence, with the first year under an intensive support and supervision program.

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The defence argues the girl should receive a sentence of 12 months of probation, with a minimum of six months in an intensive support and supervision program.

On Wednesday, the girl offered a tearful apology as she addressed the court, saying she accepts full responsibility for her actions and is making an effort to change herself for the better.

“I know nothing I say will ever change what happened, but I still want to say that I’m truly sorry and I accept full responsibility and I am making an effort to grow as a person and learn from it and I’m disappointed in the actions and decisions I made,” she said.

The late-night attack that shocked the city was captured on security video, and the footage served as the central piece of evidence at trial.

Prosecutors argued the girl was the one who fatally wounded Lee, stabbing him with a knife or small pair of scissors in the melee. The defence, however, argued it was impossible to tell from the video who stabbed Lee or when, noting Lee himself didn’t realize he’d been stabbed at the time.

No knife was recovered in the investigation, and the girl’s lawyers said she didn’t have one at any point that night.

At the time of her arrest, she had two small pairs of scissors and some tweezers, court heard.

Lee died from hemorrhagic shock after he was stabbed in the heart, the forensic pathologist who examined his body told the court. The pathologist testified it was unlikely the scissors found with the girl would have caused the wound to Lee’s heart, though they could have caused a smaller, non-fatal stab wound near his armpit.

Campbell said prosecutors had not proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the girl was responsible for the fatal injury, or that she had the state of mind required for murder.

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A York Region paramedic says she was looking forward to working in the field again after a six-year union leave, but she was abruptly fired last month over a Facebook comment criticizing Israel’s military actions in the Middle East.

“I was about to be back on an ambulance at the end of July,” Katherine Grzejszczak said Thursday in her first public comments about the case.

“I was actually really excited and looking forward to going back out, to being a paramedic.”

Instead, the veteran paramedic said she was fired on June 20 after she criticized Israel’s bombing of Gaza and several countries, and accused the country of starving Palestinian children and killing health-care workers in a comment on a union social media post.

The Regional Municipality of York said last month that officials launched an investigation into an employee’s “concerning comments on social media” on June 19, which led to a dismissal.

“I think it’s extremely unfortunate that we are here,” said Grzejszczak, who served on the Canadian Union of Public Employees Ontario’s executive board.

“It’s not a good time, it has been an extremely emotionally difficult time for me.”

Grzejszczak told reporters that the comment she made was in line with her “professional obligations” as a health worker.

“I love my job as a paramedic because it is first and foremost about preserving life and alleviating suffering,” she said, adding that calling for an end to “a genocide is not a threat to public safety, it is public safety.”

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“I really hope that I’m soon reinstated so that I can continue using my life saving skills to serve the residents of York Region,” she said at a news conference, surrounded by supporters and union members.

Her dismissal has triggered concern among free speech advocates and lawyers who say it was a violation of Grzejszczak’s Charter rights.

“Whether one agrees or disagrees with the content of her Facebook post, she was exercising her Charter-protected right to freedom of expression,” Daniel Paré, a senior fellow at the Centre for Free Expression at Toronto Metropolitan University, said at the press conference.

He called on York Region to reinstate Grzejszczak, who has been a paramedic since 2010.

“She is to be judged on whether she meets her professional standards of care, not her political beliefs,” Paré said. “And let’s be clear, there has been no suggestion that Katherine’s political beliefs have ever resulted in any inappropriate treatment of any patient.”

Reached for comment Thursday, a spokesperson for the Regional Municipality of York forwarded the statement originally issued in June about an employee’s “concerning comments.”

Patrick Casey also said “there is no change from York Region since the matter was initially addressed.”

Krista Laing, the chair of CUPE Ontario Municipal Workers, said the entire process of firing Grzejszczak took less than 48 hours, and alleged there was no proper investigation.

She said the decision sets a precedent that should worry workers across the province, and CUPE will continue to fight for her reinstatement.

The Centre for Free Expression says it has seen an increase in the number of people being penalized for expressing their political views since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

The latest war in Gaza began with the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, in which militants killed 1,200 people and took roughly 250 hostages.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said earlier this week that the war’s toll among Palestinians had surpassed 60,000. The ministry, which operates under the Hamas government, doesn’t distinguish between militants and civilians in its count, but has said that more than half of the dead are women and children.

The United Nations and other independent experts view its figures as the most reliable count of casualties. Israel has disputed the figures, saying it only targets militants and it blames civilian deaths on Hamas.

–With files from The Associated Press

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