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An investigation is underway to understand how a Delta Air Lines flight ended up upside-down on a runway at Toronto's Pearson International Airport. Seventeen people were injured, at least two critically, on Monday after the commuter plane arriving from Minneapolis crash-landed and flipped over on the tarmac. All 80 people on board, passengers and crew, survived. NPR's Jackie Northam reports.
JACKIE NORTHAM, BYLINE: It was shortly after 2 p.m. when Delta Air Lines Flight 4819 was coming in for landing at Toronto Pearson International Airport. Winds were gusting about 40 miles an hour, and there had been heavy snowfall in the area for the past three weeks. The CRJ-900 commuter jet crashed on landing, flipped over and laid belly up on the snowy tarmac, its right wing sheared off.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Everything - drop it. Come on.
NORTHAM: A video posted on social media by passenger Pete Koukov showed crew trying to help people quickly off the plane. Another passenger, John Nelson, describes the scene outside.
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JOHN NELSON: Our plane crashed. It's upside-down. Fire department is on-site.
NORTHAM: Emergency crews work to put out a fire and take the injured for help.
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DEBORAH FLINT: Airport emergency workers mounted a textbook response, reaching the site within minutes and quickly evacuating the passengers.
NORTHAM: Deborah Flint is president and CEO of Pearson Airport. During a press conference, she said there were no fatalities in the crash and that some of the passengers have been reunited with family and friends.
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FLINT: We do expect that there will be some operational impact and some delays at the airport over the next few days while the two runways remain closed for the investigation.
NORTHAM: Since the flight took off from Minneapolis, national transportation safety boards in the U.S. and Canada will work together to determine the cause of the crash. The Canadian crash comes less than a month after a midair collision between an American Airlines jet and a U.S. military helicopter killed 67 people at Washington, D.C.'s, Reagan National Airport.
Jackie Northam, NPR News.
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