The wreckage of the crashed Air France A340 is seen in this photo. (View Full Size)

All 309 people on board Flight 358 from Paris survived Tuesday's crash.

Investigators said it was too soon to determine whether the long landing on the 9,000-foot runway, combined with torrential rains and gusting winds, was to blame for the crash of the Airbus A340 at Lester B. Pearson International Airport, Canada's busiest.

"We do have some information that the aircraft did land long," the chief investigator for Canada's Transportation Safety Board, Real Levasseur, told a news briefing. "We are still in the process of gathering all that data to find out what that means."

Levasseur also said an aircraft like the A340 "should land well toward the back" of the runway, depending on factors such as the weight of the plane and wind speed.

Witnesses and some passengers said it appeared that Flight 358 was coming in too fast and too long when it landed in thunderstorms. The airport was under a "red alert," which indicates the potential for lightning and forces ground staff to remain indoors but does not prevent planes from landing or taking off.

Levasseur said Thursday the Air France crew did not declare an emergency to air traffic controllers as the plane approached the runway at 160 mph. It then skidded some 200 yards off the east-west runway at 95 mph before burning.

He said the preliminary evidence suggested there was nothing wrong with the aircraft.

On Friday, he said there was no evidence that lightning struck the plane, as some witnesses reported.

"The wings and wing tips are in pretty good shape," he said.

He also said investigators have determined that all four engine thrust-reversers were in operation and working fine, "so that's a good sign."

The captain of the Air France jet, meanwhile, remained hospitalized with back injuries Friday and would not be questioned until his physical state improves, officials said.

The co-pilot, who was at the controls when the accident occurred, was questioned Thursday, but investigators said the details of those queries would not be released.

Air France said the co-pilot had 10,700 hours of flying time, and the 57-year-old pilot had 15,000 hours.

The flight attendants, who were widely praised for having gotten the passengers off the burning aircraft within two minutes, also were questioned.

The flight data and voice recorders — the so-called "black boxes" — were recovered Wednesday and send to TSB headquarters in Quebec. But Canada does not have the proper equipment to download the data, so it will take several days for such equipment to arrive from France.

The black boxes may indicate whether the passenger jet experienced brake failure or hydraulic pressure problems.

The wreckage of the jetliner remained off the side of Highway 401, where many of the passengers had wandered after escaping the wreckage.

Brian Lackey, vice president of operations for the Greater Toronto Airport Authority, said Wednesday the jetliner had enough fuel to divert to Montreal or another airport where the weather was better, but "that's the pilot's decision."

Levasseur said the decision to land during a "red alert" would be investigated.

He emphasized that wind shear likely was not a factor in the crash — as has been speculated — because that usually would affect aircraft only during flight.