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This March 29, 2015 handout photo provided by the Canada Transportation Safety Board shows a side view of damage to a Air Canada Airbus A-320 that skidded off the runway at Halifax International Airport in Halifax, Nova Scotia. An Air Canada jet came off the runway after landing at the Halifax airport in Nova Scotia on March 29, sending at least 23 people to hospital, officials said.--

The crash of an Air Canada plane at Halifax's Stanfield airport has characteristics of what investigators call an approach and landing accident, a situation similar to a fatal air crash in Nunavut in 2011, and a long-time concern of the TSB.

"Unfortunately, this is an area of aviation where we can probably do better," said Mike Cunningham, Atlantic regional manager of accident investigation for the TSB. "Approach and landing issues that lead to runway excursions have been on our watch list."

Investigators spent Monday sifting through the extensive debris from the Airbus A320, which crashed early Sunday morning. The RCMP took a supporting role to TSB investigators, an indication police are not conducting a criminal investigation at this point.

Mr. Cunningham said the pilot and first officer, both of whom have about 15 years of experience, had an initial interview with investigators on Sunday.

"They were both quite rattled," Mr. Cunningham said. "The first officer actually had some injuries that had to be taken care of this morning. Some minor surgery had to be done, I believe."

An Air Canada spokesman said the crew has been released from flying duties for the investigation.

The plane was en route from Toronto to Halifax with 133 people on board when it slammed into the ground well short of the runway. The plane slid about 300 metres before coming to a halt, and passengers and crew were forced to evacuate. Twenty-five people were treated for injuries, none considered life-threatening.

The TSB said the early indications are preliminary and months of further analysis will be required. The cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder have been sent to Ottawa. Mr. Cunningham said he could not say whether the information has been downloaded and examined yet.

Investigators released further details on Monday about the sequence of events after examining the debris field, ground markings and aerial photographs of the crash site taken by RCMP drone aircraft.

The first contact with the ground was about 335 metres short of the runway when the aircraft crashed into an earthen berm, tearing off its main landing gear and damaging the wings. Then, almost simultaneously, it crashed through a sturdy metal antenna array, bounced back up into the air and smashed belly-first into the ground, at which point the nose wheel broke off, before the fuselage slid down the asphalt runway with sparks flying, losing one engine and pulverizing the other.

The plane should have been flying at a height of 17 metres when it crossed the threshold of the runway, aiming for touchdown about 350 metres further down, so it missed the mark by a considerable margin.

It is too early to know where the investigation will lead, but controlled flight into terrain – CFIT, in the jargon of accident investigators – is the most common cause of major accidents in big airlines. It involves an airworthy plane under control of a pilot being accidentally flown into the ground or a mountain. A worldwide Boeing study of commercial jetliner accidents over the past two decades said CFIT accounts for nearly half of all major crashes. It was blamed in Canada's most recent fatal jet crash, when First Air pilots attempting to land in bad weather in Resolute, Nunavut, crashed a Boeing 737 into a hillside, killing 12 of the 15 people on board in August, 2011.

Mr. Cunningham cited that incident in an interview on Monday.

"What we had there was an approach where they weren't on the desired approach profile and there was some confusion about that in the cockpit. They continued the descent, however, and they were unable to conduct the missed approach prior to impacting the terrain," Mr. Cunningham said.

Investigators will examine the pilots' performance in Sunday's crash, he added. They will look at whether fatigue or any other physiological impairment was involved, he said. The weather was bad, which is why the plane flew a holding pattern over Halifax, but air traffic control advised the pilots visibility had improved enough to attempt a landing.

The plane will likely stay on the runway for several more days for the investigation, Mr. Cunningham said.

With reports from Greg Keenan and staff

Editor's note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said Canada's most recent fatal jet crash was an Air North, Yukon's Airline, plane in Resolute. In fact, it was a First Air plane that crashed. This digital version has been corrected. The Globe and Mail apologizes to Air North for the error.

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