Delta plane flips during landing at Toronto Pearson, leaving 15 injured

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Delta plane flips during landing at Toronto Pearson, leaving 15 injured.

A fiery crash at Toronto Pearson International Airport left three people critically injured and a dozen others hurt after their plane flipped onto its roof upon landing Monday afternoon.

The incident shuttered Canada’s busiest airport for hours starting around 2:45 p.m. Smoke could be seen pouring out of the overturned aircraft in videos posted online, as passengers of Delta Air Lines Flight 4819 from St. Paul International Airport in Minneapolis, Minn., ran onto the gusty, snowy tarmac.

One child and two adults were airlifted to hospital with critical injuries, according to air ambulance provider Ornge. Another 12 passengers taken to hospital “were walking wounded with minor, mild to moderate injuries,” said Lawrence Saindon, Peel Regional Paramedic Services supervisor.

All 80 people aboard, including 76 passengers and four crew, were evacuated and accounted for.

The plane that went down was a Canadian-made Mitsubishi CRJ900, manufactured by Bombardier 16 years ago, according to FlightRadar24. In January, 67 people died after a variant of the same model, a CRJ700 flown by American Airlines, collided with a U.S. Army helicopter in Washington, D.C.

A recording of the radio transmissions between the control tower and the aircraft provided a glimpse of the moments shortly before and after the crash at Pearson.

“We just had a crash on runway 23 here,” an air traffic controller is heard saying in audio posted online by Live ATC. “The airport is closed.”

“We’ve got people walking around outside the aircraft,” one man says in the audio. “Yeah, the aircraft is upside down and burning,” comes a response.

Passenger John Nelson posted a video of the upside-down Delta plane to Facebook shortly after the crash occurred. In the comments below, he wrote: “I landed and was stuck upside down. It exploded shortly after the video.”

Amy Hersherhoren was on a different plane taxiing for takeoff from Toronto to Los Angeles when she heard the crash.

“I felt and heard a tremendously loud jet engine noise and deep vibration,” she said. “There’s no mistaking it really.”

The atmosphere aboard her plane quickly turned anxious as passengers were left in the dark about the incident before being brought back to the airport, she said.

Upon deplaning, Ms. Hersherhoren described feeling shaken up. “I’m actually still trembling because the noise and the feeling that I heard, I knew something wasn’t right.”

As of 5 p.m., Toronto Pearson posted to X saying flights had resumed.

During the suspension of air traffic in Toronto, 14 flights were rerouted to Ottawa Macdonald–Cartier International Airport and many diverted passengers remained in Canada’s capital after flights in Toronto resumed.

“We are supporting the airlines and ground handlers, and have extra resources on hand in the event that any of the flights are deplaned and passengers require support,” Ottawa Airport Authority spokesperson Krista Kealey said in a statement Monday afternoon.

While the cause of the crash is unclear, the incident occurred amidst an already tumultuous long weekend at the Toronto airport. Hundreds of flights were either cancelled or delayed Sunday, owing to a winter storm that continues to affect much of Eastern Canada with high winds, extreme cold and heavy snowfall.

Earlier on Monday, Pearson said on social media that it was expecting a busy day as airlines were catching up on significant delays and cancellations. More than 130,000 passengers were expected to board around 1,000 flights, the airport stated.

At the time of the crash, weather conditions at the airport were -9 C and windy, with blowing snow and gusts from the west of up to 64 kilometres an hour, according to Environment Canada.

At an evening press conference, Greater Toronto Airports Authority CEO Deborah Flint declined to take any questions from the media but praised the airport’s response to the crash as “textbook.”

”We are very grateful there was no loss of life and relatively minor injuries,” she said.

Two runways where the accident took place will remain closed until the investigation concludes, she said.

”No airport CEO wants to have these types of press conferences, but this is exactly what our emergency, our operations and our first responders partners are all practised and trained for,” she said. “This outcome is due in part to their heroic work. I thank them profusely.”

When the aircraft crashed it was just ending its second flight of the day, according to FlightRadar24. On Monday morning, the plane flew to Minneapolis from Cleveland. On Sunday, it made six flights – a typical day – touching down in New York, Detroit, Toronto and Green Bay, Wisc., flight records show.

John Cox, CEO of aviation safety consulting firm Safety Operating Systems in St. Petersburg, Florida, said this type of incident is extremely uncommon.

“We’ve seen a couple of cases of takeoffs where airplanes have ended up inverted, but it’s pretty rare,” Mr. Cox said.

The CRJ900 is a proven aircraft, he added, which has been in service for decades and does a good job of handling inclement weather. While it was windy at the time of the crash, he said it wasn’t outside the realm of anything the airplanes and pilots aren’t designed for and trained on.

In a statement, Delta Air Lines said it had cancelled its flights to and from Toronto’s airport for the remainder of Monday evening and issued a travel waiver.

Several Canadian and American politicians took to social media Monday to express their relief about there being no casualties and their gratitude for first responders.

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada will be in charge of the investigation into the crash, with assistance from a team of U.S. investigators led by the National Transportation Safety Board.

With reports from Temur Durrani, Chris Wilson-Smith and the Associated Press