Photo: The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

The Transportation Safety Board says an Air Canada plane that crashed at the Halifax airport early Sunday hit an antenna array before landing on the runway.

Mike Cunningham, the regional manager of air investigations, says the landing gear on AC624 came off and it skidded on a runway for nearly 340 metres before it came to a stop.

The aircraft touched down the same distance before the end of the runway, Cunningham said.

"Obviously, it's too early to draw any conclusions about this occurrence. These things are always very complex," he told a news conference.

"This type of event is on the TSB's watchlist and so it's a very great concern to us and we'll be putting our maximum effort into determining what happened."

The plane left Toronto just before 9 p.m. Saturday carrying 133 passengers and five crew members. It landed hard and skidded off a runway Sunday at 12:43 a.m. in a snowstorm, Air Canada said.

Klaus Goersch, the company's chief operating officer, said earlier in the day the two pilots flying the plane circled above Halifax Stanfield International Airport before concluding the conditions were suitable for landing.

"It was safe to fly in this weather. The aircraft did circle for a period of time but when the approach was initiated, the weather was at the approach minimums," Goersch told a news conference.

"The weather was appropriate for landing."

Cunningham said he can't rule out weather as a factor.

There was conflicting information on the number of people injured after the accident. Air Canada and the airport said 23 people were taken to hospital, but Goersch later said 25 were hospitalized and all but one of them were released.

None of the injuries were considered life-threatening, Air Canada said.

Cunningham said everyone on board was fortunate to have survived the experience.

"I'd say they're pretty lucky," he said.

A team of 12 to 15 investigators have been assigned to review what happened, Cunningham said, adding that officials from France's accident investigation board and aircraft manufacturer Airbus are also arriving in Halifax.

The cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorders have been recovered and sent to Ottawa for analysis, Cunningham said.