Washington, United States:

US airline Delta will offer $30,000 to each passenger on a plane that crashed as it landed at Toronto airport this week, the carrier told AFP on Wednesday.  “This gesture has no strings attached and does not affect rights” of passengers, a company spokesman said. 

On Monday, a Delta Air Lines plane that departed from the US city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, hit the runway hard at Toronto’s main airport and flipped upside down. 

A fireball and thick plumes of black smoke engulfed the plane as it skidded to a halt on its roof but none of the 80 people on board were killed.

Delta said 21 passengers were injured in the accident but only one was still hospitalized as of Wednesday morning. 

Paramedic services said emergency responders dealt with various injuries among the passengers, including back sprains, head injuries, anxiety and headaches.

Dramatic footage of the crash posted on social media and verified by AFP on Tuesday showed the Bombardier CRJ-900 coming in to land before slamming into the runway, then sliding forward in a roll, with its wings sheared off before it stopped on its back.

Canada’s Transportation Safety Board launched an investigation, assisted by the US Federal Aviation Administration, Delta and Mitsubishi, which purchased the CRJ line of planes from Bombardier in 2019. 

The Toronto crash was the latest in a recent string of air incidents in North America, including a midair 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.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Toronto:

At least 18 people were injured after a Delta Air Lines regional jet flipped upside down upon landing at Canada’s Toronto Pearson Airport on Monday amid windy weather following a snowstorm. There were 80 people aboard the US carrier’s flight that originated at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

Authorities said three people on the flight, including a child, suffered critical injuries. There is no report of any casualty so far. 

Canadian authorities said they would investigate the cause of the crash, which was not yet known.

Caught On Camera

A passenger named Pete Koukov posted a video on Instagram of his rescue by authorities from inside the plane after it crashed. The footage shows passengers being evacuated from an upside-down aircraft as a fire engine sprayed water on it from outside.

Footage captured by another survivor of the accident is also doing rounds on social media showing a female passenger suspended upside down in her seat after the plane had overturned.

“My plane crashed I’m upside down,” she wrote alongside the recording.

The video then showed frightened travellers scrambling to exit the aircraft while making their way to safety. “I was just in a plane crash, oh my god,” the distressed passenger remarked.

BREAKING: STUNNED TORONTO PLANE CRASH SURVIVOR SHARES VIDEO OF MOMENT DELTA JET FLIPPED

DELTA AIRLINE WAS THE ONLY US AIRLINE TO RESIST COMPLYING WITH DONALD TRUMP‘S EXECUTIVE ORDER TO END DEI POLICIES

A Delta passenger plane carrying 76 people crashed at Toronto’s Pearson… pic.twitter.com/0jNOXcawyi

— SANTINO (@MichaelSCollura) February 17, 2025

Another passenger John Nelson also posted a video of the aftermath on Facebook, showing a fire engine spraying water on the plane that was lying belly-up on the snow-covered tarmac.

Terrifying footage from John Nelson, a passenger on Delta Flight #DL4819. The plane flipped upside down upon landing in Toronto after a 1.5 hour trip from Minneapolis, MN.

Miraculously, only 8 of 60 passengers are reported injured. The rest have walked off unharmed. pic.twitter.com/P7qbMBj0IQ

— Jordan Rhone (@JordanRhone) February 17, 2025

He later told CNN there was no indication of anything unusual before landing.

“We hit the ground, and we were sideways, and then we were upside down,” Nelson told the television network.

“I was able to just unbuckle and sort of fall and push myself to the ground. And then some people were kind of hanging and needed some help being helped down, and others were able to get down on their own,” he said.

Chronology Of The Crash 

Earlier on Monday, Pearson Airport said it was dealing with high winds and frigid temperatures as airlines attempted to catch up with missed flights after a weekend snowstorm dumped more than 22 cm (8.6 inches) of snow at the airport.

The Delta plane touched down in Toronto at 2:13 p.m. (1913 GMT) after an 86-minute flight and came to rest near the intersection of Runway 23 and Runway 15, according to flight tracking website FlightRadar24.

“The aircraft is upside down and burning,” an emergency worker told the air traffic control tower after a controller noted that some passengers were walking near the crashed plane, according to a recording of the incident posted on liveatc.net.

Deborah Flint, president of the Toronto airport, attributed the absence of fatalities in part to the work of first responders at the airport.

“We are very grateful that there is no loss of life and relatively minor injuries,” she said at a press conference.

Michael J. McCormick, associate professor of air traffic management at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, said the upside-down position made the crash fairly unique.

“But the fact that 80 people survived an event like this is a testament to the engineering and the technology, the regulatory background that would go into creating a system where somebody can actually survive something that not too long ago would have been fatal,” he said.

Airport Delays

Delta, in a statement, said a CRJ900 aircraft operated by its Endeavor Air subsidiary was involved in a single-aircraft accident with 76 passengers and four crew members on board. The 16-year-old CRJ900, made by Canada’s Bombardier and powered by GE Aerospace engines, can seat up to 90 people.

All 18 of the people injured were passengers and were taken to area hospitals, Delta said in a statement.

Of those injured, two were airlifted to trauma centres, and a child was transported to a children’s hospital, said Supervisor Lawrence Saindon of Peel Regional Paramedic Services.

The Toronto airport was shut down for more than two hours before departures and arrivals resumed. This led to ground delays and diversions to other airports including Montreal-Trudeau International Airport, which said it was preparing to receive several diverted flights that might cause further delays.

Flint said on Monday evening there would be some operational impact and delays at Toronto Airport over the next few days while two runways remained closed for the investigation.

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) said it was deploying a team of investigators, and the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said a team of investigators would assist Canada’s TSB.

Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which closed a deal to buy the CRJ aircraft program from Bombardier in 2020, said it was aware of the incident and would fully cooperate with the investigation.

The crash in Canada followed other recent crashes in North America. An Army helicopter collided with a CRJ-700 passenger jet in Washington, killing 67 people, while at least seven people died when a medical transport plane crashed in Philadelphia and 10 were killed in a passenger plane crash in Alaska.

New Delhi:

A plane encountered severe landing difficulties that led to a partial fire and evacuation of all passengers on board at Canada’s Halifax Stanfield International Airport today. The Air Canada Express flight operated by PAL Airlines, arriving from Newfoundland, experienced landing gear failure, reports said. The incident occurred around 9:30 pm local time.

“The plane started to sit at about a 20-degree angle to the left, and we heard what almost sounded like a crash sound as the wing of the plane began skidding along the pavement,” a passenger was quoted as saying by Canada’s CBC News. 

The aircraft’s capacity is estimated to be around 80 passengers, with most seats reportedly occupied, however, the exact number of passengers remains unconfirmed.

Emergency services, including paramedics and the Nova Scotia RCMP, were quick to respond. An airport spokesperson confirmed that all passengers and crew members were evacuated safely and transported to a hangar for medical assessment

The cause of the landing gear failure is currently under investigation. Aviation authorities and Air Canada representatives have yet to determine whether the issue was mechanical, procedural, or caused by external factors. 

This incident at Halifax occurred in parallel with a devastating aviation disaster in South Korea. A Jeju Air flight carrying 181 people from Bangkok to Muan crashed during landing, resulting in the deaths of 179 on board. 

Video footage from the Muan crash showed the plane engulfed in flames shortly after landing.

Two trainee pilots from India are among three persons killed when a small plane crashed in Canada’s British Columbia province, according to media reports.

Abhay Gadru and Yash Ramugade, both 25, from Mumbai, were in the small twin-engine light aircraft – a piper PA-34 Seneca – which crashed on Friday near the local airport in Chilliwack city, about 100 km east of Vancouver.

The plane crashed behind a motel near the airport, killing the pilot and everyone on board, Sgt. Pete Healey from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police was quoted as saying by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).

A total of three people were killed in the plane crash.

The report said that Gadru’s sibling Chirag, who also lives in the British Columbia province, is trying to send back his brother’s remains to their parents in India.

Meanwhile, CTV News Vancouver, a Canadian news portal, said that the second person among the three killed was Yash Ramugude, who also hailed from Mumbai.

The registration number on the plane’s tail indicates the aircraft, which appeared badly damaged, is a Piper PA-34 Seneca owned by SkyQuest Aviation, a flight school based in Langley.

“We’re looking into it but we’re not issuing any statements. There is nothing we can say at this time,” an employee, who works as an administrator at SkyQuest Aviation, said on condition of anonymity.

The reports did not identify the pilot of the small plane.

It is still unknown what caused the twin-engined light aircraft to crash, the CBC report said.

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada said it’s sending investigators, it said.

Mumbai:

Two families from Mumbai got the worst possible news on Saturday when they were told that their young sons were among three people killed in a plane crash in Canada a day earlier.

The two trainee pilots were in a small twin-engined light aircraft – a Piper PA-34 Seneca – which crashed near the local airport in Chilliwack, close to Vancouver, in British Columbia.

The pilots who have been killed are 25-year-old Abhay Gadru from Vasai and Yash Vijay Ramugade from Santacruz.

Abhay used to stay in Krishna Vandan Society in the Evershine area before he moved to Canada for his pilot training. His neighbour, Vaibhav Goyal, said everyone in the neighbourhood has very fond memories of Abhay and the news of his death has plunged the entire society into mourning.

“We got a call at 5 am on Saturday and could not believe that something like this had happened to Abhay. His brother, Chirag, has also been studying in Canada since last year. Authorities in Canada have not let Chirag see Abhay’s body yet, and he has been told that he will be given Abhay’s belongings on Sunday,” Mr Goyal said.

The neighbour said he had spoken to Chirag over the phone. “He is very worried and is trying to get in touch with the consulate so that Abhay’s body can be brought back home. Their parents are currently visiting some relatives in Delhi,” he said.

Mr Goyal said Abhay was like a brother to him and all doors in the neighbourhood were always open for him. “I never thought of him as anything but a brother,” he added.