At least 15 people were injured Monday after a Delta Air Lines plane appeared to have overturned upon landing at Toronto Pearson International Airport.
Footage posted on social media and broadcast from the airport showed a surreal scene — the plane flipped completely upside-down as emergency workers evacuated passengers and attended to the crash site.
“We just landed. Our plane crashed. It’s upside-down,” John Nelson, who took the video, said as he walked away from the plane. He noted that “most people appear to be OK” and that passengers were getting off of the plane.
All passengers and crew members have been accounted for, the airport said in a social media post.
Twelve of the injured sustained minor injuries and were transported by ground for medical attention, said Lawrence Saindon, a superintendent for Peel Regional Paramedic Services.
Two others were in critical condition and were airlifted to a nearby trauma center, Saindon said.
One of those is a male in his 60s who is being taken to St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, according to Joshua McNamara, corporate communications lead with Toronto Air Ambulance. The other is a female in her 40s and is being taken to Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto.
Saindon said another among the injured, a child, was taken by ambulance to The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, McNamara added.
The extent of the other injuries was unclear, but there were not believed to be any fatalities, according to Delta.
The Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement that Delta Air Lines Flight 4819, which was operated by Endeavor Air and was arriving from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, crashed while landing in Toronto around 2:45 p.m. Endeavor is a “wholly owned subsidiary of Delta Air Lines headquartered in Minneapolis,” Delta said.
A total of 80 people were on the plane, a CRJ-900, the FAA said. There were 76 passengers and four crew members on board, Delta said.
Toronto Pearson is under a ground stop “due to an aircraft emergency,” meaning all departures and arrivals are canceled for the time being, according to the National Airspace System Status from the FAA.
Snow was blowing at the Toronto airport all day. There was lake effect snow earlier in the day but there was no snow reported or on radars at the time of the accident.
At the time of the crash there were 20 to 30 mph winds, with reported gusts up to 40 mph.
As the passengers were being evacuated from the jet, the temperature was 18 degrees with a windchill temperature of -2.
The Association of Flight Attendants union, which posted on social media that it was responding to the event, said some of their crew members were working on the flight.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada will investigate the incident, according to the FAA. The TSB said in a post on X that it is deploying a team to investigate the incident.
The National Transportation Safety Board said it will assist the TSB of Canada with the investigation.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said FAA investigators are on their way to Toronto and that he has been in touch with his Canadian counterpart to help with the investigation.
Jesse Rodriguez, Jay Blackman and Bill Karins contributed.
