Passengers who survived the crash said the power on the A-340 jet went off about one minute before it landed.

"I saw lightning," passenger Roel Bramar told Canada's CTV television. "Maybe the plane had already been hit by lightning," he added.

"The reason I'm mentioning that is because just as we landed, the lights turned off. And that's unusual. So I'm sure that the bad weather was responsible," said Bramar.

Another passenger, Olivier Dubois, also said he thought the jet was hit during its landing.

"One minute before we crashed there was no more light," he said.

The plane's pilot seemed unable to stop the plane, which pitched into a ravine at the end of the runway and burst into flame, Bramar said.

"It seemed that the captain wasn't able to apply sufficient braking power," he said. "There was a real roller coaster going on."

"I guess in the end it turned out to be that he overshot the (runway)... we came to the end of the (runway) and went into the ravine. Plane came to an abrupt stop and that's putting it mildly."

He was the second person off the plane, Bramar said.

"Really what I did was run like crazy. There was quite a bit of fire on the ground," he said.

There were 297 passengers and 12 crew on the Air France jet, which was arriving from Paris, officials said.

No deaths were reported in the crash, according to Air France.

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