A Delta Air Lines jet flipped onto its roof while attempting to land at Toronto Pearson International Airport, Canada, on Monday, but all 80 people on board survived, with only minor injuries reported.
CEO of the Greater Toronto Airports Authority, Deborah Flint, confirmed the outcome, expressing gratitude that there were no fatalities.
The flight, originating from Minneapolis, carried 76 passengers and four crew members.
It approached Pearson amid strong winds and blowing snow, landing around 2:15 p.m. Communications between air traffic control and the pilots appeared normal before touchdown, leaving investigators questioning what led to the dramatic accident.
Emergency responders arrived swiftly, and firefighters were seen extinguishing flames while passengers exited the aircraft and walked across the tarmac.
Pearson Fire Chief, Todd Aitken, reported that 18 passengers were transported to hospitals. Among them, a pediatric patient was taken to Toronto’s SickKids hospital, while two adults were sent to medical facilities elsewhere in the city, according to Ornge air ambulance.
Despite the adverse weather, with winds reaching 40 mph (65 kph) and temperatures around -8.6°C (16.5°F), Chief Aitken clarified that the runway was dry and no significant crosswinds were present at the time of the crash.
The aircraft, a Mitsubishi CRJ-900LR, came to rest at the intersection of Runways 23 and 15L, not far from its landing point.
This incident marks the fourth major aviation accident in North America in the past three weeks.
Recent crashes include a January 29 collision between a commercial jetliner and an Army helicopter near Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., which resulted in 67 fatalities.
Other accidents involved a medical transport plane crash in Philadelphia on January 31, killing seven people, and a February 6 crash in Alaska that claimed 10 lives.
The last significant crash at Toronto Pearson occurred on August 2, 2005, when an Air France Airbus A340, arriving from Paris, overshot the runway in stormy weather and caught fire. All 309 passengers and crew survived.
Before landing, the Delta flight had been cleared at 2:10 p.m., with tower controllers cautioning the pilots about potential turbulence.
Aviation safety expert, John Cox, explained that such warnings typically indicate possible instability on approach but emphasized that commercial aircraft and pilots are trained to handle such conditions.
“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,” Cox said. “So it was windy. But the airplanes are designed and certified to handle that. The pilots are trained and experienced to handle that.”
Moments after the crash, a medical helicopter crew returning to Pearson observed passengers outside the aircraft.
“Just so you’re aware, there’s people outside walking around the aircraft there,” a controller informed the crew.
“Yeah, we’ve got it. The aircraft is upside down and burning,” the medical helicopter pilot responded.
Cox, a former U.S. Air pilot and aviation safety consultant, noted that while the CRJ-900 has a strong track record in bad weather, incidents where a plane inverts are exceedingly rare.
“We’ve seen a couple of cases of takeoffs where airplanes have ended up inverted, but it’s pretty rare,” he stated.
One key focus of the investigation is the absence of the plane’s right wing. “If one wing is missing, it’s going to have a tendency to roll over,” Cox explained. “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 confirmed that the Transportation Safety Board of Canada will lead the inquiry, with assistance from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board.
Delta Air Lines CEO, Ed Bastian, extended support to those affected, stating, “The hearts of the entire global Delta family are with those affected by today’s incident at Toronto-Pearson International Airport.”
Minnesota Governor, Tim Walz, also acknowledged the crash, confirming he was in communication with Delta regarding the situation.
The aircraft was operated by Endeavor Air, a Minnesota-based subsidiary of Delta and the largest CRJ-900 operator worldwide.
The airline operates 130 of these jets across 700 daily flights to over 126 cities in the U.S., Canada, and the Caribbean.
The CRJ-900, originally developed by Canadian aerospace company Bombardier, belongs to the same family as the CRJ-700, the model involved in the fatal midair collision near Reagan National Airport last month.
