Toronto (Canada) (AFP) – A Delta Air Lines jet with 80 people onboard crash-landed Monday at the Toronto airport, officials said, flipping upside down and leaving at least 15 people injured but causing no fatalities. The Endeavor Air flight 4819 with 76 passengers and four crew was landing at around 3:30 pm in Canada’s biggest metropolis, having flown from Minneapolis in the US state of Minnesota, the airline said.
Paramedic services told AFP that 15 people were injured, including three critically—a child, a man in his 60s, and a woman in her 40s. All wounded, including those with minor injuries, were taken to area hospitals either by ambulance or helicopter, the paramedic service said. Dramatic images on local broadcasts and shared on social media showed people stumbling away from the upside-down CRJ-900 plane, shielding their faces from wind gusts. Fire crews appeared to be dousing the aircraft with water as smoke wafted from the jetliner.
“Toronto Pearson is aware of an incident upon landing involving a Delta Air Lines plane arriving from Minneapolis. Emergency teams are responding. All passengers and crew are accounted for,” the airport authority posted on X. The airport suspended all flights after the incident. Facebook user John Nelson, who said he was a passenger on the flight, posted a video showing the crashed aircraft and wrote: “Our plane crashed. It’s upside down.” “Most people appear to be okay. We’re all getting off,” he added.
Delta said its connection flight operated by Endeavor had been “involved in an incident,” and promised to share further details as it confirmed them. “Initial reports were that there are no fatalities,” the airline said through a spokesperson’s statement. A massive snowstorm hit eastern Canada on Sunday. Strong winds and bone-chilling temperatures could still be felt in Toronto on Monday when airlines added flights to make up for weekend cancellations due to the storm. “The snow has stopped coming down, but frigid temperatures and high winds are moving in,” the airport warned earlier, adding that it was “expecting a busy day in our terminals with over 130,000 travellers on board around 1,000 flights.”
Federal Transport Minister Anita Anand confirmed there were 80 people on the flight. “I’m closely following the serious incident at the Pearson Airport involving Delta Airlines flight 4819 from Minneapolis,” she posted on X. Ontario Premier Doug Ford, meanwhile, said he was “relieved there are no casualties after the incident at Toronto Pearson,” adding that airport and local authorities were providing help. Canada’s Transportation Safety Board said it was deploying a team of investigators to the site of the crash. This comes after other recent air incidents in North America, including a mid-air collision between a US Army helicopter and a passenger jet in Washington that killed 67 people, and a medical transport plane crash in Philadelphia that left seven dead.
© 2024 AFP
