Describing the terrifying moments before an Air France passenger jet crashed at Toronto's Pearson International Airport, one survivor says the plane lost power before it hit the ground.

One of the passengers aboard the Air France flight 358 from Paris, France to Toronto Tuesday afternoon, Olivier Dubos, told CTV News there was no other warning before the crash.

"We didn't know at all what was happening. Really, we think the crew was as surprised as we were that we had to make an emergency landing," Dubos said.

"We had absolutely no insight or hint that the landing would be difficult," he added, noting there was some general concern due to the pelting rain at the time. "We just knew it would be a bit hard because of the weather."

Just moments before the landing, however, Dubos said the lights on the plane went out.

"The plane was going extremely fast and the power shut down completely, but we thought that was because of the rain ... Then we could feel were off road, and then it was really, really scary."

Once the plane ground to a halt some 200 metres off the runway, Dubos says there was a mad rush to flee.

"We were really, really scared that the plane would blow up because there were lots of flames," he said. "Everyone was running very hard to get out of there."

According to Ahmed Alatava, who was also aboard AF358, the weather during landing made everyone nervous.

When it first appeared the landing was a success, Alatava said, a short-lived sigh of relief swept through the plane.

"When he come to land in the airport, everybody is clapping to the captain.... but after that we felt bump, bump, bump ... then through the window I saw fire."

Eventually, the Toronto resident said, the crew opened an emergency exit and he joined others leaping out to safety.

"Everybody lost his documents, his money and other stuff," he added, also unsure of how many passengers managed to escape with their lives.

In a press conference less than three hours after the crash, Greater Toronto Airports Authority officials said all the plane's passengers are believed to have escaped alive. Just 14, they said, were being treated for minor injuries.

Debbie Wilkes, known to many Canadians as a figure skating commentator, happened to be in a slow-moving car on the nearby Highway 401 when the plane skidded off the runway.

Her attention had been transfixed, she said, because of rain and hail at the time.

"We were watching the storm unfold as we were stuck in traffic," she told CTV News. "We saw a fork of lightning come down and hit something... then there was a huge billowing plume of black smoke that emerged."

In the brief moment it took for her car to advance another few hundred feet, Wilkes said she saw that "it was a plane that had gone off the end of the runway... there were streaks of fire on the runway."

As emergency crews raced to contain the scene of the crash, Toronto airport was closed to other traffic.