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.

Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, which has conducted extensive research on bat coronaviruses, has faced controversy and scrutiny from various countries, including the US, regarding allegations of a lab leak contributing to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, scientists at the institute have developed a new nanovaccine that shows promise in providing universal protection against all major Covid-19 variants and potential future coronavirus mutations, South China Morning Post reported. 

According to the research team, current vaccines have played a crucial role in preventing the spread of Sars-CoV-2 and reducing mortality rates. However, they believe that existing vaccines lack universal protection against all variants of the virus. So, they developed a universal COVID-19 vaccine by combining coronavirus epitopes (specific parts of antigens that trigger an immune response) with the blood protein ferritin. This combination creates an intranasal nanoparticle vaccine that shows promise in protecting multiple variants of Sars-CoV-2, including Delta, Omicron, and WIV04.

The WIV04 strain refers to an early variant of Sars-CoV-2 that was initially detected in Wuhan, the central Chinese city where the Covid-19 pandemic first emerged. 

”The ongoing and future pandemics caused by Sars-CoV-2 variants and mutations underscore the need for effective vaccines that provide broad-spectrum protection,” the researchers wrote in a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal ACS Nano in June.

”Our constructed nanovaccine targeting the conserved epitopes of the pre-existing neutralising antibodies can serve as a promising candidate for a universal Sars-CoV-2 vaccine,” the paper added. 

While the global risk level of COVID-19 has significantly decreased, researchers warn that the virus’s ongoing mutation will continue to generate new variants, some of which may possess increased transmissibility and potentially trigger future outbreaks or even another global pandemic. 

That’s why the team believes that nanovaccines offer an “excellent vaccine platform” and have long-lasting immune responses. 

The nanovaccine was first tested on mice, which demonstrated promising results. Mice receiving the nanovaccine, followed by two booster shots within 42 days, showed significantly higher levels of Immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies compared to control groups. When vaccinated mice were exposed to various coronavirus variants, including Omicron and Delta, they exhibited enhanced resistance to virus-induced lung symptoms, showcasing the vaccine’s protective efficacy against different strains.

The nanoparticle vaccine “has the potential protective capability as a broad spectrum vaccine against various [coronaviruses]”, the team wrote.

A farmer in Valathamangalam village in Thirunallar commune drying cotton in his house using a fan in Karaikal district
| Photo Credit: Special arrangement

Uma Gandhan, a farmer from Valathamangalam village in Thirunallar commune, was trying to dry his cotton using a fan in a portion of his house, like several hundreds of farmers here where cotton was affected by the recent off-season rain. Cotton is cultivated on over 2,500 acres in the district.

“I had raised cotton on two acres and while harvesting I found many cotton flowers had high levels of moisture content. Now, I am trying to dry the cotton using a fan but there is a considerable loss this time for me,” said Mr. Uma.

“Private traders who usually purchase from us are unwilling to settle for an amount as they are dissatisfied with the quality of cotton due to the recent rain. I can pluck cotton from the field only after confirmation from a trader. Despite applying all the chemicals suggested by the Agriculture Department, damages due to rain could not be reversed,” said P. Pandiyan, another farmer from Thennankudi village.

“For one acre, a farmer spends about ₹60,000. We pluck cotton in four rounds, out of which the first time will have the best quality cotton which assures us that our investment will return. This time, the first round of plucking was disturbed as the rainwater went inside the crop before the flower burst. We expect our insurance money and a relief to farmers from the government at the earliest. Officials, however, cite the Model Code of Conduct as the reason for not giving us our due relief,” said P.G. Somu, Joint Secretary of Delta Vivasayigal Sangam.

“Traders are offering ₹50-60 a kg of cotton, which will leave us with a considerable loss,” he added.

D.N. Suresh from the Kadaimadai Vivasayigal Sangam claimed the district regulated market was not effective in procurement as they could not attract many traders there. “Like private, the government marketing committee should come to procure from the field. Our regulated market in the town is not effective to aid farmers at a time of crisis. Farmers already experience a huge loss, transporting cotton to the Karaikal town costs a lot,” he said.

Auction soon

A district-level official from the Agriculture Marketing department said the cotton auction would start soon along with other regulated markets in Tamil Nadu.

“We are discussing with the marketing committees in Tamil Nadu, along with them we would start auctions for cotton in our regulated market from the second week of June. We will take all steps to attract traders for good rates. We have been advising farmers to dry their cotton and delay harvest for better rates.”

District-level Agriculture Department official speaking to The Hindu said: “We have estimated 30% loss in the total harvest across the district and have reported to the higher officials in Puducherry government. We expect an announcement related to crop relief after the Lok Sabha election results.”

“The Government of India has fixed the MSP for this year at ₹66.20 a kg. If prices fall below than that we can expect the Cotton Corporation of India to step in and procure,” he added.