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Boston Globe
19-02-2025
- General
- Boston Globe
A passenger jet flips and burns, but tragedy is averted this time
Advertisement As investigators from safety boards in Canada and the United States, as well as the regional jet's manufacturer, began combing over the wreckage, there was no official word on what caused the crash. For the 80 people on board the flight from Minneapolis, the world lurched immediately after the wheels hit the ground on Monday afternoon. In the blink of an eye, passengers found themselves hanging upside down, still strapped into their seats as jet fuel ran down the windows, said Pete Carlson, one of the passengers. 'The absolute initial feeling is just, 'Need to get out of this,'' Carlson told CBC, the Canadian public broadcaster. But after a horrific string of fatal aviation accidents over the past two months, this crash proved different. The seat belts that passengers had strapped on to prepare for landing likely contributed to the lack of a more catastrophic outcome, aviation experts said. Flight attendants and passengers were able to help each other out of the emergency exits and, with the assistance of firefighters, onto the snowy runway. Delta said that 21 passengers were transported to local hospitals after the crash, as of Monday night. By Tuesday morning, all but two had been released, the airline said. Cory Tkatch, commander of operations at the Peel Regional Paramedic Services, said that the injured passengers suffered 'back sprains, head injuries, anxiety, some headaches, nausea and vomiting due to the fuel exposure.' Advertisement The crew of an air ambulance waiting to take off captured the moment of the crash-landing on film. The video, which spread on social media and was verified by The New York Times, may offer clues about what caused the plane to end up flipped over on its back. Fox Flight, a Canadian air ambulance company based in Toronto, told the Times that the video had been filmed from one of its aircraft. The jet, a Bombardier CRJ900 operated by a Delta subsidiary, Endeavor Air, was landing at 2:15 p.m. Eastern time after a seemingly normal flight along the busy route between Minneapolis and Toronto. 'The second that the wheels hit the ground, then everything happened,' said Pete Koukov, a professional skier from Colorado who was on the flight, in an interview Monday night. 'The next thing I know, we're sideways.' The plane skidded on its right side, said Koukov, who was sitting at a window seat on the other side of the plane. He saw sparks and flames as the plane hit the ground. When the plane came to a stop belly-up, he unbuckled and lowered himself down to the ceiling of the aircraft, which was now its floor, Koukov said. 'People were panicking.' A video taken by Koukov shows a flight attendant helping passengers climb out of the plane, urging them to hurry and to leave their belongings behind. Other videos from the scene showed flames and black smoke billowing from the plane as firefighters hosed it down. Photos taken after the crash showed most of the right wing of the jet shorn off, and the left wing damaged with the left landing gear still attached to the plane. Advertisement The Transportation Safety Board of Canada will lead the investigation into the crash, officials have said, and the National Transportation Safety Board has said it was leading a team of American investigators to assist the Canadian authorities. The ability of the crew to open the jet's doors, even while upside down and get passengers out quickly, was a testament to their training, according to aviation safety experts. Carlson, who had a scrape visible on his head, said he saw a woman who had ended up under a seat and a mother and a boy who were sitting on the ceiling of the aircraft. He had no idea what state any of them were in, he said. 'My fatherly instinct and background as a paramedic kind of kicked in,' he said, making him focus on ensuring that they all got off the plane. Even in those panicky moments, there was a palpable camaraderie as they escaped the plane, he said. 'Everyone on that plane suddenly became very close in terms of how to help one another, how to console one another,' he said. 'That was powerful.' Jet fuel was running down the airplane's windows, Carlson said. And after leaving the plane, he and others tried to move as far from it as possible once he noticed that a wing was missing and heard sounds of an explosion. Emerging from the upside-down plane, onto the tarmac and into the blowing snow Monday, Carlson said, 'it felt like I was stepping onto the tundra.' Advertisement 'I didn't care how cold it was,' he said. 'I didn't care how far I had to walk, how long I had to stand. All of us wanted to just be out of the aircraft.' This article originally appeared in
Yahoo
18-02-2025
- General
- Yahoo
'Upside down and burning': Several injured but none dead after Pearson plane crash
TORONTO — More than a dozen people were injured but no one died when a Delta Air Lines flight from Minneapolis crashed and flipped over on the tarmac at Toronto's Pearson Airport on Monday afternoon. Paramedics said out of 80 people aboard Delta Air Lines flight 4819, at least three people, including a child, were sent to hospital with critical but non-life-threatening injuries. Others were reported to have minor injuries. During a brief media statement on Monday evening, the airport's CEO Deborah Flint praised the work of emergency crews in helping the 76 passengers and four crew members to safety. "This outcome is due to their heroic work and I thank them profusely," she said. The flight operated by the airline's subsidiary Endeavor Air was involved in what Flint called a "single aircraft accident" around 2:30 p.m. as it landed at the airport. Videos posted to social media showed emergency crews hosing down the flipped-over aircraft with a damaged wing while passengers climbed out of emergency exits to the snowy tarmac. Gusting winds up to 65 km/h and blowing snow were reported at the airport around the time of the crash. Flint spoke for less than five minutes and offered no details about a possible cause or what factors may have contributed to the crash in her update. She did not take questions from reporters. Arrivals and departures at the airport resumed by 5 p.m., but delays were expected over the coming days as crash investigators did their work, Flint said. Two runways remained closed. Flint said 17 people had been injured in the crash, and she did not know of any passengers with critical injuries. The airport's fire chief, Todd Aitken, later said 18 injured passengers had been sent to local hospitals. In an update about an hour after Flint's, he said it was "really important that we do not speculate" on the cause of the crash. "What we can say is the runway was dry and there was no crosswind conditions," he said. Aitken did not take questions from reporters, either. The figures cited by the two officials on Monday evening were both lower than the 19 people the regional paramedic service reported injured earlier in the day. A spokesperson with the Peel Regional Paramedic Services said Monday afternoon that a child with critical injuries had been taken to Toronto's SickKids hospital and two adults, also with critical injuries, had been airlifted to other local hospitals. All injuries were non-life-threatening, said Supt. Lawrence Saindon. An audio recording from the Pearson airport tower shows Delta Air Lines flight 4819 was cleared to land shortly after 2 p.m. and the tower warned the pilots of a possible air flow "bump" in the glide path from an aircraft in front of it. There were no further conversations with the Delta flight until the tower confirmed that a plane had crashed, with air controllers quickly redirecting traffic to accommodate the crash scene, according to audio pulled from a website that records and archives air traffic communications. Audio conversations from ground crews at the airport recorded a burst of commotion from workers at about the same time, with someone yelling at another person to "get off the phone," while another crew member described "a huge emergency." Several minutes later, air traffic control could be heard directing a medevac helicopter for landing, and noting there are people walking around the aircraft. "Yeah, we've got it," the medevac responds. "The aircraft ... is upside down and burning." An aviation expert said it was very rare to see a transport-class airplane end up upside down in a crash during landing. U.S. Marine Corp. veteran Colonel J. Joseph, who spent 29 years as a military aviator, said it is too early to speculate on what may have caused the crash but winds were notably strong in Toronto at that time. Joseph, an aviation consultant based in Spanish Fort, Ala., said high winds would be challenging for pilots coming into Toronto. He added that the intact fuselage and survivors in the crash mean investigators have plenty of evidence to work with. Delta Air Lines said in a social media post that affected passengers' family members and loved ones could reach out to the airline for more information. "The hearts of the entire global Delta family are with those affected by today's incident at Toronto-Pearson International Airport," Delta CEO Ed Bastian said in the post. Tracking data from FlightRadar24 shows the same aircraft flew from Cleveland to Minneapolis earlier in the day, and that it was supposed to return to Minneapolis after landing in Toronto. The plane had arrived at Pearson amid blowing snow following a winter storm that hit the Toronto region over the weekend. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada said it was deploying a team of investigators to Pearson airport and federal Transport Minister Anita Anand said she was closely following the "serious incident." Her U.S. counterpart, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, said inspectors from the Federal Aviation Administration were on their way to Toronto and the Canadian investigators would take the lead. "I've been in touch with my counterpart in Canada to offer assistance and help with the investigation," he said on social media. Ontario Premier Doug Ford said in a social media post that provincial officials are in contact with the airport and local authorities and will provide help as needed. Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow thanked first responders in her own post and expressed her relief that all passengers and crew on board the plane had been accounted for. After the crash, flights in and out of Pearson airport were temporarily suspended. A spokesman for Montreal-Trudeau International Airport said in the afternoon that it was preparing to receive aircraft originally bound for Toronto. Eric Forest, a spokesman for airport authority, said several diverted flights were expected in Montreal following the accident. "Our teams are in action to welcome them," Forest said in an emailed statement. In the hours following the crash at Pearson, confused passengers gathered at terminals amid mixed messaging from airport and airline staff. At one point, an overhead announcement told everyone to proceed to the exit and baggage claim, but some workers were telling passengers to remain at their gates. Departures and arrivals resumed as of 5 p.m., and airlines suggested passengers check the status of their flights. Porter Airlines said on social media just before 5:20 p.m. that operations were "in the process of recovering." — With files from Sonja Puzic in Toronto, Sidhartha Banerjee in Montreal and Chuck Chiang in Vancouver. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 17, 2025. Jordan Omstead and Rianna Lim, The Canadian Press Sign in to access your portfolio
Cedar News
17-02-2025
- General
- Cedar News
UPDATE: At least 15 people injured in plane crash at Toronto Pearson International Airport
Join our Telegram UPDATE: At least 15 people injured in plane crash at Toronto Pearson International Airport; all injuries are non-life-threatening. – Peel Regional Paramedic Services
