A Delta Air Lines plane crashed upon landing at Toronto Pearson International Airport on Monday, injuring at least 18 people. NBC Chicago’s Randy Gyllenhaal reports.
What caused a Delta Air Lines jet to flip on its roof while landing Monday at Toronto’s Pearson Airport?
Communications between the tower and pilot were normal on approach and it's not clear what went so drastically wrong when the plane touched down.
Here's what we know so far:
What happened
The Federal Aviation Administration said Delta Air Lines Flight 4819, which was operated by Endeavor Air and had traveled from Minneapolis, crashed while landing at the airport at around 2:45 p.m. There were 80 people onboard at the time.
Peter Carlson, a passenger traveling to Toronto for a paramedics conference, said the landing was “very forceful.”
“All the sudden everything just kind of went sideways and then next thing I know it’s kind of a blink and I’m upside down still strapped in,” he told CBC News.
Canadian authorities held two brief news conferences but provided no details on the crash. Video posted to social media showed the aftermath with the Mitsubishi CRJ-900LR overturned, the fuselage seemingly intact and firefighters dousing what was left of the fire as passengers climbed out and walked across the tarmac.
The plane came to a rest at the intersection of Runways 23 and 15L, not far from the start of the runway.
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Carlson said as passengers exited the plane, snow was blowing and it “felt like I was stepping onto tundra.”
“I didn’t care how cold it was, didn’t care how far I had to walk, how long I had to stand — all of us just wanted to be out of the aircraft,” he said.
In total, 21 passengers were transported to area hospitals, Delta said in a release. By Tuesday morning, 19 had been released.
“Our most pressing priority remains taking care of all customers and Endeavor crew members who were involved,” Delta CEO Ed Bastian said in a statement. “We’ll do everything we can to support them and their families in the days ahead, and I know the hearts, thoughts and prayers of the entire Delta community are with them. We are grateful for all the first responders and medical teams who have been caring for them.”
Emergency personnel reached the plane within a few minutes and Aitken said the response “went as planned.” He said "the runway was dry and there was no cross-wind conditions.”
A ground stop was issued immediately following the crash and all departures and arrivals were canceled, according to the airport. Flights later resumed at 5 p.m.
Delta canceled all of its flights into and out of Toronto Pearson on Monday evening and issued a travel waiver to affected customers.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada will be in charge of the investigation, according to the FAA. The TSB, in a post on X, said it was deploying a team of investigators and it "will gather information and assess the occurrence."
Why did the plane flip over?
While it wasn't immediately clear if weather played a role, the incident occurred amid continued snowfall in the region and follows back-to-back winter storms.
On Monday, Pearson was experiencing blowing snow and winds of 32 mph, gusting to 40 mph, according to the Meteorological Service of Canada. The temperature was about 16.5 degrees Fahrenheit.
The Delta flight was cleared to land at about 2:10 p.m. Audio recordings show the control tower warned the pilots of a possible air flow “bump” on the approach.
“It sounds to me like a controller trying to be helpful, meaning the wind is going to give you a bumpy ride coming down, that you’re going to be up and down through the glide path,” said John Cox, CEO of aviation safety consulting firm Safety Operating Systems in St. Petersburg, Florida.
“So it was windy. But the airplanes are designed and certified to handle that,” Cox said. “The pilots are trained and experienced to handle that.”
Cox, who flew for U.S. Air for 25 years and has worked on U.S. National Transportation Safety Board investigations, said the CRJ-900 aircraft is a proven aircraft that’s been in service for decades and does a good job of handling inclement weather.
He said it's unusual for a plane to end up on its roof.
“We’ve seen a couple of cases of takeoffs where airplanes have ended up inverted, but it’s pretty rare,” Cox said.
Among the questions that need to be answered, Cox said, is why the crashed plane was missing its right wing.
“If one wing is missing, it’s going to have a tendency to roll over,” he said. “Those are going to be central questions as to what happened to the wing and the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder. They will be found, if not today, tomorrow, and the Transportation Safety Board of Canada will read them out and they will have a very good understanding of what actually occurred here.”
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement that the Transportation Safety Board of Canada would head up the investigation and provide any updates. The NTSB in the U.S. said it was sending a team to assist in the Canadian investigation.
Endeavor Air, based in Minneapolis, is a subsidiary of Delta Air Lines and the world’s largest operator of CRJ-900 aircraft. The airline operates 130 regional jets on 700 daily flights to over 126 cities in the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean, according to the company’s website.
The CRJ-900, a popular regional jet, was developed by Canadian aerospace company Bombardier. It’s in the same family of aircraft as the CRJ-700, the type of plane involved in the midair collision near Reagan National Airport on Jan. 29.
Other aviation incidents
The crash follows a string of aviation disasters and close calls that have prompted worries about flying.
An American Airlines passenger jet and an Army helicopter crashed near Washington, D.C., on Jan. 29, marking the deadliest plane crash in the U.S. since Nov. 12, 2001. Two days later, a medical transportation plane crashed shortly after takeoff in Philadelphia, killing a child patient, her mother and four other individuals who were onboard. A person in a vehicle on the ground was also killed.
Shortly after, a commuter flight that crashed on Alaska sea ice, killing all 10 aboard.
