Flagship terminal crumples like pack of cards

Key points

• At least four dead in airport building collapse

• Passengers only given short time to evacuate

• Rescue workers doubtful over further survivors being found

Key quote

"I was working when the terminal suddenly collapsed. I was driving a car along the runway and I saw the building crumple like a pack of cards" - Airport employee who witnessed accident

Story in full OPENED just 11 months ago, the futuristic terminal 2E was the showpiece of Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport, north of Paris. Yesterday the building’s main departure lounge was a gaping hole after its ceiling collapsed early in the morning, killing at least five people and injuring three others.

Officials agreed that the death toll could have been much higher. The accident occurred at 7am when the airport was relatively quiet.

Also it emerged that passengers and staff may have had a few minutes’ warning to evacuate. Just minutes before the curved ceiling collapsed, bringing down tonnes of concrete, steel and glass on to passengers waiting in the lounge below, cracks had been spotted forming overhead.

Passengers immediately alerted airport staff saying they had also heard loud cracking noises and had seen dust apparently coming from the ceiling. People fled and airport officials said police were in the process of cordoning off the area when the entire ceiling collapsed.

"I was working when the terminal suddenly collapsed," said one airport employee who witnessed the accident. "I was driving a car along the runway and I saw the building crumple like a pack of cards."

"It looks pretty bad out there," said Amy Haight, 30, arriving later from Houston with her husband, Nelson. She said she saw the collapsed building and dozens of rescue vehicles as her plane landed. "It’s so sad, it’s so scary. We’re so lucky."

Michel Sappin, a prefect for the Seine-Saint-Denis region, where Roissy is located north of Paris, said there was only a moderate number of passengers in the terminal at the early hour.

The site of the accident stretches for 30 metres and is located about halfway down the 400-metre terminal, an ultra-modern concrete tube clothed in glass and steel.

Yesterday little remained of the departure lounge but a giant hole, while the guts of the building lay spewed on the tarmac. Only the narrow upright desk used by Air France stewardesses to check tickets just before boarding was still standing on the edge of the abyss.

On one side of the broken section the curved roof and walls could almost have been cut away with a knife, the break looked so smooth. But on the other, panes of glass and twisted metal stuck up like jagged teeth against the blue sky.

A gigantic black and white portrait of Dutch footballer Ruud Gullit was also visible in the mouth of the section terminal, still suspended from the ceiling it swayed gently in the wind. It had been part of a photographic exhibition in the terminal to celebrate the 100th anniversary of FIFA.

Dwarfed by massive sections of broken concrete, the orange uniformed figures of rescue workers could be seen sifting cautiously through the rubble.

Earlier in the day, the interior minister Dominique de Villepin had visited the site and stressed the difficult conditions they were working under.

Rescuers were proceeding as if tackling the aftermath of an earthquake, he said, a delicate task as they must move debris in their search for bodies or survivors while avoiding triggering a new avalanche of concrete.

The first emergency workers arrived at the scene just minutes after the accident occurred, Mr de Villepin said. Sniffer dogs specially trained in searching out earthquake survivors were used extensively during the morning.

By late afternoon, however, a spokesman for the rescue workers said the dogs had given no sign of finding anything of interest over two hours, leading them to conclude there were no other victims trapped beneath the rubble.

The area in front of the collapsed terminal was cordoned off as dozens of rescue vehicles came and went during the afternoon. Officials with clip boards huddled against the wind, their faces pale as they examined the wreckage.

The terminal had been constructed from reinforced concrete, whole sections of which had remained intact as they crashed to the ground. In some places glass panels used to cloth the terminal had shattered but had remained within their twisted steel frames and they lay like giant crumbled sweet papers on top of the debris.

Two vehicles used by ground staff had been crushed by sections of concrete. The roof of one white van was mangled so badly it was almost touching the floor of the vehicle.

It was not clear last night if airport workers were among the five dead or three injured although first reports suggested the victims had all been passengers.

Many are believed to have been booked on a flight to Prague which was due to leave from Terminal 2E. Airport officials also suggested that transit passengers aboard recently arrived flights from Johannesburg and New York may also have been among the victims.

An emergency centre offering counselling and support was set up set up at the airport immediately following the accident. On the motorway leading to the airport, illuminated overhead signs straddling the road warned motorists that terminal 2E was inaccessible. Inside the airport the corridor leading to the terminal had been cordoned off with makeshift tape whilst three gendarmes stood guard.

Flights scheduled to leave or arrive at Terminal 2E were diverted to other terminals yesterday and officials said delays had been kept to less than an hour in most cases.

"The consequences are obviously grave for us since we have to manage the movement of planes with one less terminal, grave in terms of image since this was our showcase jewel," said Pierre Graff, the president of Aeroports de Paris, which runs the airport.

The tragedy comes as France braces for the influx of summer tourists who will pour into Charles de Gaulle airport.