Delta plane flips upside down on landing at Toronto airport
TORONTO: A Delta Air Lines regional jet flipped upside down upon landing at Canada's Toronto Pearson Airport amid windy weather following a snowstorm, injuring 18 of the 80 people on board, officials said. Three people on flight DL4819 from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport suffered critical injuries, among them a child, a Canadian air ambulance official said, with 15 others also immediately taken to hospitals. Some of the injured have since been released, Delta said late on Monday.
The US carrier said a CRJ900 aircraft operated by its Endeavor Air subsidiary was involved in a single-aircraft accident with 76 passengers and four crew members on board. The 16-year-old CRJ900, made by Canada's Bombardier and powered by GE Aerospace engines, can seat up to 90 people. At least one of the two wings was no longer attached to the plane, video showed after the accident. Canadian authorities said they would investigate the cause of the crash, which was not yet known.
Toronto Pearson Airport said earlier it was dealing with high winds and frigid temperatures as airlines attempted to catch up with missed flights after a weekend snowstorm dumped more than 22 cm (8.6 inches) of snow at the airport. The Delta plane touched down in Toronto at 2:13 pm. After an 86-minute flight and came to rest near the intersection of runway 23 and runway 15, FlightRadar24 data showed.
The reported weather conditions at time of the crash indicated a "gusting crosswind and blowing snow," the flight tracking website said. Toronto Pearson Fire Chief Todd Aitken said late on Monday the runway was dry and there were no crosswind conditions, but several pilots Reuters spoke to who had seen videos of the incident pushed back against this comment.
US aviation safety expert and pilot John Cox said there was an average crosswind of 19 knots (22 mph) from the right as it was landing, but he noted this was an average and gusts would go up and down. "It's gusty so they are constantly going to have to be making adjustments in the air speed, adjustments in the vertical profile and adjustments in the lateral profile," he said of the pilots, adding that "it's normal for what professional pilots do." Investigators would try to figure out why the right wing separated from the plane, Cox said.
Michael J McCormick, associate professor of air traffic management at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, said the upside-down position made the Toronto crash fairly unique. "But the fact that 80 people survived an event like this is a testament to the engineering and the technology, the regulatory background that would go into creating a system where somebody can actually survive something that not too long ago would have been fatal," he said. — Reuters
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