In another serious mishap in North American aviation, a Delta jet ended up wingless and upside down on the airport tarmac in Toronto, Monday afternoon, in a terrifying crash landing that resulted in serious injuries, but no reported deaths.
The Bombardier aircraft — a smaller jet typically used for connecting flights — had 76 passengers and a crew of four, for a total of 80 people on board, according to a statement by Delta. The flight had originated in Minneapolis and attempted to land at Toronto’s Pearson airport around 2:15 PM eastern time, resulting in what the airline is calling a “single-aircraft accident.”
Footage from the crash site has shown the jet aircraft, missing at least one wing, belly up on the snowy tarmac in Toronto with passengers clambering out of the fuselage. CNN is reporting that there were at least 15 injured passengers, with two in critical care but expected to survive.
The Toronto airport had been digging out from back-to back heavy snowstorms over the weekend. Monday morning, the airport’s X account posted about the hard work of keeping the airport open and operational. “Our crews worked all weekend to keep the roughly 5 million square metres of airfield clear of snow to keep planes arriving and departing safely.”
There were reportedly wind gusts of up to 40 miles per hour at the airport Monday, however the cause of the crash landing is unclear. Canada’s Transportation Safety Board will lead the investigation, according to an X post from the Trump administration’s new Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, but U.S. flight investigators, he added, are already “en route to Toronto.”
The mishap builds on a remarkable string of accidents in recent weeks involving U.S. airlines, including the deadly mid-air collision of a passenger jet and a military helicopter near Washington D.C., a medical jet crash in Philadelphia, and an Alaskan commuter flight that crashed killing 10.
And it comes at a time of serious disruption within the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, whose leader resigned as Trump took office, and which has been subject to significant job cuts in recent days as part of Elon Musk’s purge of the federal workforce.
This is a developing story and may be updated.
