All 80 passengers and crew on a Delta Airlines flight that crashed and flipped upside down at Canada’s Toronto Pearson Airport have survived.
Three people, believed to be two adults and a child, suffered critical injuries when the flight from Minneapolis overturned while trying to land in blizzard conditions yesterday.
In total, 18 passengers were taken to hospital for treatment.
Airport president Deborah Flint hailed the work of first responders as she said: ‘We are very grateful that there is no loss of life and relatively minor injuries.’
A Delta airlines plane sits on its roof after crashing upon landing at Toronto Pearson Airport in Toronto (Picture: AFP via Getty)
An emergency responder works around an aircraft on a runway (Picture: Reuters)
Canadian authorities held two brief news conferences but provided no details on the crash.
Pictures taken at the scene show passengers being led out of the upside-down plane and on to the icy airport runway.
Smoke could be seen rising from the fuselage as firefighters doused it in water. The plane appears to be missing one of its wings.
Passenger John Nelson told CNN there was no indication of anything unusual before landing.
‘We hit the ground, and we were sideways, and then we were upside down,’ he said.
All passengers and crew have been accounted for (Picture: X)
First responders at the scene of the plane crash (Picture: REUTERS)
‘I was able to just unbuckle and sort of fall and push myself to the ground. And then some people were kind of hanging and needed some help being helped down, and others were able to get down on their own.’
On Monday, Pearson was experiencing blowing snow and gusts of up to 40 mph, according to the Meteorological Service of Canada. The temperature was about 8.6C.
The Delta flight was cleared to land at about 2.10pm. Audio recordings show the control tower warned the pilots of a possible air flow ‘bump’ on the approach.
John Cox, CEO of aviation safety consulting firm Safety Operating Systems in St Petersburg, Florida, said: ‘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.
‘So, it was windy. But the airplanes are designed and certified to handle that. The pilots are trained and experienced to handle that.’
Mr Cox, who flew for US Air for 25 years and has worked on US 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,’ he said.
Among the questions that need to be answered, Mr Cox said, is why the crashed plane was missing its right wing.
The flight path of flight DL4819 (Picture: Flightradar24)
Firefighters doused the fuselage in water (Picture: X)
‘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 US 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 US said it is leading a team to assist in the Canadian investigation.
Delta CEO Ed Bastian said: ‘The hearts of the entire global Delta family are with those affected by today’s incident at Toronto Pearson International Airport.
‘I want to express my thanks to the many Delta and Endeavor team members and the first responders on site.
‘We are working to confirm the details and will share the most current information on news.delta.com as soon as it becomes available.
‘In the meantime, please take care and stay safe.’
This is the fourth major aviation mishap in North America in the past month.
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