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Key Points
- Three people were critically injured in the crash, one of them a child.
- Video footage from the scene shows the plane belly up on the snow-covered tarmac.
- Toronto had been experiencing strong winds and a snowstorm prior to the crash.
A Delta Air Lines flight flipped upside down upon landing at Toronto Pearson Airport on Tuesday amid windy weather following a snowstorm, injuring 15 of the 80 people on board, officials said.
Three people suffered critical injuries, among them a child.
Delta said a CRJ900 aircraft operated by its Endeavor Air subsidiary was involved in a single-aircraft accident with 76 passengers and four crew aboard. The CRJ900, made by Canada’s Bombardier, can seat up to 90 people.
The cause of the crash was unknown.
One social media user posted video of the aftermath, showing a fire engine spraying water on the plane that was lying belly-up on the snow-covered tarmac.
“We’re in Toronto. We just landed. Our plane crashed. It’s upside down. The fire department on site. Upside down. Everybody, most people appear to be OK. We’re all getting off. Some smoke going on,” Facebook user John Nelson narrated in the video.
Pearson Airport said earlier on Tuesday it was dealing with high winds and frigid temperatures as airlines attempted to catch up with missed flights after a weekend snowstorm dumped over 22 cm of snow at the airport.
Of the 15 people injured, two were airlifted to trauma centers, and a child was transported to a children’s hospital, said Supervisor Lawrence Saindon of Peel Regional Paramedic Services.
The remaining 12 were taken to hospital.
“We have no fatalities and we have all crew and passengers accounted for,” Saindon said.
Dramatic images on local broadcasts and shared on social media showed people stumbling away from the upside down CRJ-900 plane. Source: AP / Teresa Barbieri
The Toronto airport was shut down for 90 minutes before departures and arrivals resumed. This led to ground delays and diversions to other airports including Montreal’s international Trudeau airport, which said it was preparing to receive several diverted flights that might cause further delays.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) said it was deploying a team of investigators, and the US National Transportation Safety Board said a team of investigators would assist Canada’s TSB.
The crash in Canada followed other recent crashes in North America in late January. An , killing 67 people, while at least seven people died when a .
This is a developing story and this article will be updated.
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