Delta Airlines plane lands upside down: What happened at Toronto Airport? | Photos | World News

Toronto airport president Deborah Flint credited the absence of fatalities to the efforts of first responders at the airport. “We are very grateful that there is no loss of life and relatively minor injuries,” she said at a press conference.

According to Delta’s statement, all 18 injured individuals were passengers and were transported to local hospitals for treatment.

Supervisor Lawrence Saindon of Peel Regional Paramedic Services said that two injured passengers were airlifted to trauma centres, while a child was taken to a children’s hospital for specialised care.

Operations at Toronto Pearson Airport were halted for over two hours before flights resumed, causing ground delays and diversions to other airports, including Montreal-Trudeau International Airport, which prepared to accommodate redirected flights, potentially leading to further disruptions.

Deborah Flint said on Monday evening that the Toronto airport would experience continued operational delays over the next few days, as two runways remained closed for the ongoing investigation.

Images of Delta plane that landed ‘upside down’

What happened at Toronto Pearson Airport?

Pearson Airport said earlier on Monday it was dealing with high winds and frigid temperatures as airlines attempted to catch up with missed flights after a weekend snowstorm dumped more than 22 cm (8.6 inches) of snow at the airport.

The Delta plane touched down in Toronto at 2:13 p.m. (1913 GMT) after an 86-minute flight and came to rest near the intersection of Runway 23 and Runway 15, according to flight tracking website FlightRadar24.

“The aircraft is upside down and burning,” an emergency worker told the air traffic control tower after a controller noted that some passengers were walking near the crashed plane, according to a recording of the incident posted on liveatc.net.

The cause of the accident and how the plane ended up on its back with its wings damaged has not yet been explained.

‘Upside-down position made the crash fairly unique’

Michael J. McCormick, an associate professor of air traffic management at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, told Reuters that the plane’s upside-down position made the incident quite unusual.

“But the fact that 80 people survived an event like this is a testament to the engineering and the technology, the regulatory background that would go into creating a system where somebody can actually survive something that not too long ago would have been fatal,” he said.

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) announced it was sending a team of investigators to the scene, while the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board confirmed that it would provide assistance to TSB’s investigation.

Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which acquired the CRJ aircraft program from Bombardier in 2020, expressed awareness of the incident and pledged full cooperation with the investigation.

This crash in Canada follows several recent accidents in North America, including an Army helicopter colliding with a CRJ-700 passenger jet in Washington, killing 67 people, a medical transport plane crash in Philadelphia that claimed at least seven lives, and a passenger plane crash in Alaska that killed 10 people.

(With inputs from agencies)