An Air France Airbus burst into flames after overshooting the runway while landing at Toronto's Pearson International Airport in a storm last night.
All 297 passengers and 12 crew had a remarkable escape, although 14 people were injured.
Flight 358 left Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris and was due to arrive at Pearson's terminal 3 yesterday afternoon.
Steve Shaw of the Greater Toronto Airport Authority confirmed that there were "no known fatalities" among the passengers and crew on the packed aircraft. All aboard were evacuated before the fire took hold, he said.
Survivors said they "ran like crazy" from the wreckage of the aircraft.
"We were running really fast to get out of there," a passenger said on CNN.
Canadian television quoted police as saying the pilot and a number of passengers had been taken to hospital. Two busloads of passengers were taken to hospital in downtown Toronto from the crash site.
An Air France ticket agent said the aircraft was its AF358 flight from Paris to Toronto, an Airbus A340.
"An Air France plane landing on runway 2-4 went off the end of the runway in the area of Convair Drive and the 401 area in Mississauga," police sergeant Glyn Griffiths said.
Witnesses told Canadian television stations that the aircraft had skidded off the runway after landing amid lightning and rain. One witness suggested it may have been hit by lightning.
Debbi Wilkes, who was driving in a car on a highway alongside the airport, said it was "pouring rain" and "pelting with hail" at the time of fire. "We saw a bolt of lightning come down and hit something."
Live TV pictures showed huge clouds of black smoke and orange flames billowing from the fuselage. Firefighters, who were quickly on the scene, sprayed foam over the wreckage to damp down the flames.
The aircraft was lying off the end of a runway close to a main traffic artery. Some passengers were said to have made their way to the highway, from where they were taken to hospital.
Afternoon rush-hour traffic quickly clogged the highway, Canada's busiest, as vehicles passed only a few yards from the crash site.
A witness who was standing by the highway watching aircraft land at the airport, said: "It was about 4 o'clock. It was getting really dark. All of a sudden lightning was happening. A lot of rain was coming down. I didn't see the size of the plane but it was an Air France plane.
"It came in on the runway, everything looked good. Sounded good. It hit the runway nice and all of a sudden we heard its engines backing up."
He said rescue workers got to the aircraft within about 40 or 50 seconds.
According to another witness, who was interviewed after receiving a phone call from a friend who was on the plane, the jet experienced a big drop in altitude before coming in for a very rough landing. Other passengers reported that the aircraft lost power when landing.
Toronto airport was closed to other traffic, with aircraft diverted to Ottawa and other nearby airports.