On Monday, February 17th, during a fiery landing Delta Air jet crashed at Toronto Pearson International Airport, skidding down the tarmac while trying to come to a stop that causes the plane to flip upside down.
The scene was captured on video by air traffic controller. The passengers on board have also made videos posted on social media of inside the plane and be escorted out. Out of the passengers on board, the flipped plane left 21 injured, and two in critical condition.
According to a CBSnews article it states that the causes have not yet been discovered. “What causes it remains under investigation by the Canadian Transportation Safety Board, which said Tuesday that the aircraft’s black boxes have been recovered, and the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and federal Aviation Administration” (Czachor, Feb. 26).
The Delta Air Lines Flight 4819 carrying 76 passengers and four crew members departed Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport in Minnesota on Monday morning.
The plane struck the landing strip as it arrived at Toronto Airport at around 1:15 p.m. CST. Images and videos show the aircraft hit the pavement and proceed to turn sideways while sliding across the airfield. The plane then proceeds to lose its tail and both wings along the way.
After sliding for a while, the plane eventually came to a halt with passengers hanging upside down from their seatbelts. The article then describes a person saying he, “crashed down onto the ceiling, which has become the floor after unbuckling” (Czachor, Feb. 26).
Emergency team rushed to the site with extinguisher’s to stop the blaze of fire and then started to evacuate passengers who were still inside.
(Chris Young/The Canadian Press via AP)
After the incident, Toronto International Airport president and CEO Deborah Flint praised the Delta flight crew and emery workers for their “textbook response” and reporting to the incident “within minutes. Deborah flint then made another statement stating, “The crew of Delta Flight 4819 heroically led passengers to safety, evacuating a jet that had overturned on the runway on landing that was amidst smoke and fire. Thank you for all that you do every day and every night in service of safe air travel” (Czachor, Feb. 26).
