TORONTO: Dramatic new footage released on Tuesday (Feb 18) showed a passenger plane hitting the runway hard and flipping upside down at Toronto’s main airport, as investigations began into the cause of the crash.
A fireball and thick plumes of black smoke engulfed the Delta Air Lines plane as it skidded to a halt on its roof on Monday but none of the 80 people on board were killed.
“The crew of Delta Flight 4819 heroically led passengers to safety, evacuating a jet that had overturned on the runway on landing, amidst smoke and fire,” Toronto airport authority chief executive Deborah Flint told a news conference.
She said Canada’s Transportation Safety Board had deployed 20 investigators to the site where the Bombardier CRJ-900 crashed.
The agency said in a statement on Tuesday evening it had recovered the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder, which were sent to a laboratory for examination.
“It is far too early to determine the cause of the accident,” the agency said.
Canada’s investigators will be assisted by the US Federal Aviation Administration and representatives from Delta and Mitsubishi, which purchased the CRJ line of planes from Bombardier in 2019.
Injuries sustained in the crash ranged from “minor to critical, but not life-threatening”, Flint said.
Delta said 21 passengers were transported to hospitals and so far 19 had been released.
Paramedic services told AFP on Monday that three people had been critically injured – a child, a man in his 60s and a woman in her 40s.
Source: CNA
