Multiple people injured after plane crashes upside down at Toronto Pearson International Airport
Shocking new footage moments before a Delta aircraft hits the tarmac and flips has been released, with the crash leaving multiple injured.
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Chilling new footage of a passenger plane crash in Canada has been released, showing the Delta Airlines flight carrying 76 passengers making impact with the ground before flipping upside down.
The Delta Airlines flight carrying 76 passengers and four crew from Minneapolis, Minnesota crashed just before 3pm on Monday at Toronto Pearson International Airport.
Eighteen people were injured, the airport’s Fire Chief Todd Aitken said during a news conference on Monday local time.
Ornge, Ontario’s ambulance service, told CP24 that one child was being transported to Toronto’s SickKids hospital with critical injuries. A man in his 60s and a woman in her 60s also both sustained critical injuries.
The others were taken to local hospitals with minor injuries.
New footage released of the crash shows the moment a Delta Air Lines flight crash landed, with the impact and explosion happening as soon as the plane was wheels down.
Speaking at a press conference, Deborah Flint, CEO of the Greater Toronto Airports Authority, said of those on board, 22 were Canadian while the others were “multinationals”.
“We are very grateful there was no loss of life, and relatively minor injuries,” Ms Flint said during the Monday night press conference.
“There was no loss of life and this is in due part to our heroic and trained professionals, our first responders at the airport.”
Two runways will remain closed during the investigation.
Canadian Transportation Minister Anita Anand said in a post on X that all 80 people on board were accounted for.
“I’m closely following the serious incident at the Pearson Airport involving Delta Airlines flight 4819 from Minneapolis,” she said.
The airport said in a post on X, “Toronto Pearson is aware of an incident upon landing involving a Delta Airlines plane arriving from Minneapolis. Emergency teams are responding. All passengers and crew are accounted for.”
Video posted on social media showed the aftermath of the crash, with the badly damaged small plane flipped on its roof as passengers are evacuated on the snow-covered runway.
“We’re in Toronto — we just landed, our plane crashed, it’s upside down,” John Nelson said in a video on Facebook.
“Fire department’s on site. Most people are going to be OK. They’re all getting off.”
Another passenger, Ashley Zook, took to Snapchat from the seat of the plane as she tried to escape.
“I was just in a plane crash. Oh my god,” she said down the camera lens.
Another passenger, Pete Koukov, had camera gear on hand after recently filming ski content.
Mr Koukov captioned his footage on social media with “being alive feels pretty cool today” as he climbed from the flipped plane and on to the tarmac with the assistance of a female crew member
‘Holy f**k,’ he said on reflection of the wreck. ‘Oh my f***ing God. Yo, I was just on this f***ing plane.’
In an interview with CNN, Mr Koukov said he didn’t know there was an issue until the aircraft hit the ground.
“We hit the ground, and we were sideways, and then we were upside down hanging like bats,” Mr Koukov said.
“Just feeling lucky and happy I got to give the person I didn’t know sitting next to me a big hug, that we were okay.”
Flight records show Delta Flight 4819 took off from Minneapolis at about 11.47am, with the crash occurring just before 3pm.
“Delta is aware of reports of Endeavor Flight 4819 operating from Minneapolis/St. Paul to Toronto-Pearson International Airport as involved in an incident,” Delta Airlines said in a statement posted to its website.
“We are working to confirm any details and will share the most current information on news.delta.com as soon as it becomes available.”
The plane is a Bombardier CRJ-900LR, which can hold up to 88 passengers and four crew.
“It is my understanding that most of the passengers are out and unharmed but we’re still trying to make sure so we’re still on scene investigating,” Constable Sarah Patten of the Peel Regional Police in Ontario told Reuters.
The crash comes after a weekend storm that dumped more than 22 centimetres of snow at the airport. Toronto Pearson said earlier that its airfield teams had worked through the night on Sunday to clear runways “so planes can safely arrive and depart”.
Toronto Pearson is the country’s “largest and busiest airport, in Canada’s largest and busiest city”, its website notes.
It handles around 456,000 flights and more than 44 million passengers annually.
The airport is located about 23 kilometres northwest of Toronto’s CBD.
All arrivals and departures were shut down following the crash but had resumed as of 5pm.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada said it was deploying a team of investigators to Toronto Pearson.
“The TSB will gather information and assess the occurrence,” a spokesman said.
It’s the latest in a string of airline incidents across North America in recent weeks, including the devastating January 29 collision of a US Army helicopter with an American Airlines flight near Washington DC that killed 67 people.
Monday’s crash is the first major incident involving a commercial passenger jet since the Potomac River tragedy.
On January 31, Meds Jets Flight 056, a Learjet 55 carrying six people including a young patient and her mother, crashed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, leaving seven dead and dozens injured.
On February 6, Bering Air Flight 445 crashed in Alaska, killing all 10 occupants aboard the Cessna 208B Grand Caravan.
On February 13, a pilot was killed and four others injured after a private jet owned by Motley Crue singer Vince Neil slammed into another plane Scottsdale Airport in Arizona.
Originally published as Multiple people injured after plane crashes upside down at Toronto Pearson International Airport
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