A Delta Air Lines jet attempting to land at Toronto Pearson Airport amid strong winds and drifting snow crashed and flipped over on the tarmac on Monday afternoon, finally coming to a rest with its belly up and with at least one wing shorn off.
Despite the crash landing, all 80 people aboard Flight 4819 from Minneapolis were evacuated.
Photos and video showed flames and black smoke billowing from the plane, and passengers coming out the front and rear doors. They walked away on the snow-covered tarmac as firefighters hosed down the aircraft.
At least 18 people were injured, according to Delta. They included one person with critical but not life-threatening injuries who was airlifted to a trauma center and a child who was in critical but non-life-threatening condition.
The others who were injured were taken to hospitals with minor to moderate injuries. Officials said that 22 of the passengers were Canadians.
Pete Koukov, 28, a professional skier from Colorado who was on the flight, said that nothing seemed amiss during the plane’s final descent.
“The second that the wheels hit the ground, then everything happened,” Mr. Koukov said in an interview on Monday night. “The next thing I know, we’re sideways.”
He said that the plane had skidded on its right side and that he had been sitting in a window seat on the left side.
“So you look down and you see sparks and flames on the side that’s touching the ground,” he said. “We ended up completely upside-down. I unbuckled pretty fast and kind of lowered myself to the floor, which was the ceiling. People were panicking.”
The Bombardier CRJ900, operated by a Delta subsidiary, Endeavor Air, crashed around 2:45 p.m., according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Delta later said that the crash occurred at 2:15 p.m.
The crash is likely to create aviation chaos for days to come in Canada. The airport, the country’s largest and busiest, was already reeling from delays and cancellations caused by a series of winter storms.
Investigation underway: The Transportation Safety Board of Canada will lead the investigation, officials said. The National Transportation Safety Board said it was leading a team of American investigators to assist the Canadian authorities.
Weather at the airport: There were strong winds coming from the west at about 29 miles per hour, with gusts of up to 38 m.p.h., at the time of the crash, according to Environment Canada’s weather service. It also reported drifting snow in Toronto, which, like much of Ontario, was hit with two snowstorms in the past few days.
Regional carrier: Endeavor Air, a wholly-owned Delta subsidiary, operates smaller planes on shorter routes for the airline. It operates 121 CRJ900s, configured with seats for 70 or 76 passengers. CRJ900s have been in service around the world for more than two decades and have a solid safety record, according to data from Cirium, an aviation data company.
Series of accidents:
The crash on Monday has added to a spate of aviation accidents that have rattled travelers in recent weeks. On Jan. 29, an American Airlines regional jet and an Army helicopter collided over the Potomac River, leaving no survivors. Two days later, a small medical plane crashed, killing all six on board and one person on the ground.
The crash adds to snowstorm disruptions at Toronto’s Pearson Airport.
The crash of a Delta Air Lines jet on Monday afternoon exacerbated travel disruptions at Toronto Pearson International Airport, which was already juggling a slew of flight delays and cancellations caused by major back-to-back snowstorms.
Nearly 400 flights had been canceled at Pearson on Monday night, and more than 300 others were delayed at the airport, according to FlightAware, an aviation tracking website.
The airport stopped operations for over two hours after the Delta plane crashed and flipped over as it attempted to land. Operations resumed at about 5 p.m. but two of the airport’s five runways remained closed.
Toronto Pearson had expected Monday to be busy as airlines tried to catch up after a snowstorm on the weekend dumped over eight inches of snow at the airport. On Sunday, more than 300 flights were canceled and more than 500 were delayed, according to FlightAware.
That was on top of the disruptions caused by another snowstorm last week, which dropped more snow in one day at the airport than in all of January, Toronto Pearson said Thursday.
The airport said its crews had been working around the clock in recent days to clear snow from more than 1,200 acres to ensure planes could land and take off.
A series of air crashes this year has rattled travelers.
The Delta Air Lines crash at Toronto Pearson International Airport on Monday is the latest in a series of accidents this year that has spread anxiety among air travelers and prompted sharp criticism of American aviation regulators.
Here are the three major U.S. accidents so far in 2025:
American Airlines jet and Army helicopter collide
On the night of Jan. 29, an American Airlines plane was approaching Washington’s Reagan National Airport when it collided with an Army helicopter that was on a training mission.
The collision set off a fireball and sent both aircraft and 67 people — 64 on the Bombardier CRJ700 and three on the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter — crashing into the Potomac River. There were no survivors.
It was the deadliest air crash in the United States in 20 years. In the aftermath, questions emerged about the flight paths of the helicopter and the plane, and whether staffing at Reagan National’s air traffic control contributed to the collision. An investigation is ongoing.
Medical jet goes down in Philadelphia
A small medical plane slammed into the ground in northeast Philadelphia a minute after taking off on Jan. 31, bursting into fire and engulfing homes and vehicles in flames. All six people on board, and one person on the ground, were killed, the authorities said.
The Learjet 55 was transporting a child who had completed treatment in Philadelphia to her home in Mexico. She was accompanied by her mother, and there were also two pilots, a doctor and a paramedic on board, according to Jet Rescue Air Ambulance, which operated the plane.
Regional plane crashes in remote Alaska
A small passenger plane carrying 10 people vanished on Feb. 6 as it was flying to Nome, Alaska. Its disappearance set off a massive search operation, with Coast Guard and Air Force planes scanning a remote area along the western coast of Alaska.
The Cessna 208 Caravan was operated by Bering Air, a regional airline. Its wreckage, with the bodies of the pilot and nine passengers, was found the next day.
Before it crashed, its pilot had told air traffic control that he intended to enter a holding pattern while waiting for the runway in Nome to be cleared, according to the Nome fire department. But Alaska’s
Transportation Department said the runway that the plane had been approaching had remained open throughout that day.
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