All passengers and crew survive plane crash at Toronto airport
Written by BBC on February 18, 2025
All 80 passengers and crew on a flight which crashed and overturned while landing amid severe winter weather at Toronto Pearson Airport in Canada have survived, officials said.
“We are very grateful there was no loss of life,” said Deborah Flint of the Greater Toronto Airports Authority.
The officials said 18 people were injured in Monday’s crash, including a child and two adults who were in a critical condition. Images later emerged showing the plane flipped over and lying on its roof on the snow-covered tarmac. It appears to be missing at least one wing.
The cause of the crash of a Delta Air Lines Flight 4819 from the US city of Minneapolis is unclear. An investigation is under way.
There were 76 passengers and four crew on board the 16-year-old CRJ900 aircraft, made by Canada’s Bombardier company.
Eighteen passengers were taken to hospital. A child, a man in his 60s and a woman in her 40s suffered critical injuries, said Ontario air ambulance service Ornge.
In an evening briefing, Ms Flint called the response by emergency personnel “textbook” and credited them with helping ensure no loss of life.
The US Federal Aviation Authority said the plane was operated by Delta’s subsidiary Endeavor Air.
Delta said the incident happened at about 14:15 ET (19:15 GMT) on Monday.
Twenty-two passengers were Canadian nationals and the rest were “multinational”, Ms Flint said.
The airport was closed after the incident, but flights into and out of Toronto Pearson resumed at about 17:00 local time.
Canada’s Transportation Safety Board (TSB) said it was working to “gather information and assess the occurrence”.
Two runways will remain closed for several days for investigation and passengers have been told to expect some delays.
Toronto Pearson Fire Chief Todd Aitken said “the runway was dry and there was no cross-wind conditions”.
That contradicted earlier reports of wind gusts of more than 64km/h (40mph) and a crosswind.
Video footage shared on social media shows people clambering out of the overturned aircraft, with fire crews spraying it with foam.
“Our plane crashed, it’s upside down,” said one man as he filmed a video taken from outside the upturned plane.
The video shows passengers being helped out of the plane’s doors by airport staff, with some then running away from the plane’s entrance.
“Most people appear to be OK. We’re all getting off, there’s some smoke going on,” he can be heard saying.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford said provincial officials were in contact with the airport and local authorities and would provide any help needed.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said he was “grateful to the first responders and professionals on the scene”.
After the crash, the airport’s arrival and departure boards showed scores of delays and cancellations to flights. Some passengers told the BBC that they were now stuck in Toronto for days.
James and Andrea Turner were in customs – located right before the departure gates – when they were suddenly told to evacuate.
“They got rid of everybody from customs to security, and then put everybody back to the general area,” James said, adding that the departures hall was packed as a result.
Toronto Pearson Airport had been experiencing weather-related delays over the last few days, with heavy snowfall and freezing temperatures battering parts of Ontario.
Two storms – one on Wednesday and one on Sunday – covered the city with a total of 30-50cm (11.8-19.6 inches) of snow.
The BBC’s US partner CBS reports that there was light snow falling at the time of the crash.
Earlier on Monday, the airport warned that “frigid temperatures and high winds were moving in”.
It said a “busy day” was expected, with airlines “catching up after this weekend’s snowstorm”.
The crash is at least the fourth major aviation incident in North America in the past month – including a deadly in-air collision between a passenger plane and a military helicopter near Washington DC’s Ronald Reagan airport, which killed all 67 people on board.
