Aviation disasters

August 2, 2005: More than 300 passengers and crew escape death at Toronto’s Pearson Airport after Air France flight 358 from Paris skids off the runway, plunges into a ravine and bursts into flames.

The Airbus A340, part-built in Wales, got into trouble while landing in extreme weather conditions.

January 2004: A Flash Airlines Boeing 737 develops a mechanical failure soon after taking off from the Egyptian holiday resort of Sharm el Sheik.

A total of 148 people including 133 French tourists are killed when it ditches into the Red Sea.

July 2003: A Boeing 737 crashes shortly after leaving Port Sudan Airport, killing 116 people. The only survivor is a two-year-old Sudanese boy, Mohammed el-Fateh Osman, found lying on a fallen tree with multiple injuries.

November 2001: All 260 passengers and five people on the ground are killed when an American Airlines Airbus A300 crashes shortly after take-off from Kennedy Airport in New York.

Crash investigators conclude that turbulence from a previous plane taking off may have ripped off the tail wing.

July 2000: An Air France Concorde crashes on take-off from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport, claiming 133 lives. One of its wheels is punctured by a piece of metal on the runway that had fallen off another plane.

September 1999: A Britannia Airways Boeing 757 carrying 236 passengers bounces and breaks into three as it attempts to land at Gerona Airport in Spain.

The Thomson Holidays flight from Cardiff is hindered by torrential rain and the extinguishing of runway lights. All passengers survive.