Toronto plane crash, Flight 4819

[birchesgreen]

Another plane crash unfortunately. A Bomardier CRJ operated by Delta appears to have turned over on landing and is now upside down. It does seem like the fuselage is intact and hasn't caught fire though so thats hopeful.

Jon Ostrower (@jonostrower.com)

Passenger on Flight 4819 that crashed on landing in Toronto posted this video from the scene after evacuation from the Delta CRJ900. Screen caps via John Nelson - full link here: https://www.facebook.com/jwnelson301/videos/932280132043778

bsky.app

Passenger on Flight 4819 that crashed on landing in Toronto posted this video from the scene after evacuation from the Delta CRJ900.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Yes just seen this . Thanks for posting. All plane crashes are bad but I have 2milliion miles on Delta. This is mu go-to airline. Definitely scary.

UPDATE -all accounted for

Delta Air Lines plane crashes, flips at Toronto airport: 18 injured, including child

A Delta regional flight operated by Endeavor, departing from Minneapolis, crashed at a Toronto airport, after the recent midair collision near DCA.

www.usatoday.com

A Delta Air Lines regional jet appears to have crashed at Toronto's Pearson International Airport.

In a social media post, the airport operator said it was "aware of an incident upon landing involving a Delta (Air Lines) plane arriving from Minneapolis." According to the post, emergency teams responded, and all passengers and crew members were accounted for.

According to social media posts from FlightRadar24, a flight tracking website, the flight involved was Delta 4819 from Minneapolis to Toronto. It was operated by Endeavor Air for Delta Connection using a CRJ-900.

Other social media posts appeared to show the regional jet upside down on the tarmac in Toronto.

 

[birchesgreen]

No fatalities, a few injured but most got out ok. Thank goodness for that.

 

[nlogax]

Having just seen some very clear footage from a pilot lined up waiting to either cross or access rwy 23 it's evident that the landing was extremely hard. Absolute miracle that thankfully no-one died in this one.

 

[swt_passenger]

Is the sequence something like hard landing, major damage to right undercarriage, right wing breaks away, aircraft fuselage then still skidding along at speed roughly in the direction of its previous heading, so all the lift generated by the left wing has no counterbalance from the right wing.

It says a great deal about the aircraft’s survivability, I bet the emergency responders were anticipating far worse.

 

[BananaRepublic]

Is the sequence something like hard landing, major damage to right undercarriage, right wing breaks away, aircraft fuselage then still skidding along at speed roughly in the direction of its previous heading, so all the lift generated by the left wing has no counterbalance from the right wing.

It says a great deal about the aircraft’s survivability, I bet the emergency responders were anticipating far worse.

It looks like that was the sequence of events.
A very hard landing.
From the video, it looks like no apparent attempt to flair and the aircraft hit the runway hard.
The right undercarriage appears to have collapsed or broke off on impact, simultaneous with the starboard wing contacting the ground and snapping off.

A surviving passenger appeared on a Canadian news channel.
He said the approach was very bumpy and gusty and that they hit the ground very hard, before the blur of them tumbling over.

There's no room for speculation and the investigation will determine the cause of the accident.

 

[Skymonster]

it looks like no apparent attempt to flair

No pilot fails to make an attempt to flair - its totally drilled in from day one of training. It may be, however, that a sudden down draft or wind shear leaves the pilot with insufficient time or control authority to counter it.

There's no room for speculation and the investigation

I absolutely abhor the ”lets not speculate” approach. In my opinion there is ALWAYS room for speculation and I believe it is massively beneficial. The official investigation will take months, maybe years to reach a conclusion. Speculation allows those of us who fly to consider what MIGHT have gone wrong, think about what we currently do, and potentially put in place mitigations that could address ANY of those of those issues, irrespective of whether or not they were the root cause.

 

[Bald Rick]

Is the sequence something like hard landing, major damage to right undercarriage, right wing breaks away, aircraft fuselage then still skidding along at speed roughly in the direction of its previous heading, so all the lift generated by the left wing has no counterbalance from the right wing.

It says a great deal about the aircraft’s survivability, I bet the emergency responders were anticipating far worse.

That matches my amateur assessment of events.

 

[crablab]

There's no room for speculation

And yet...

It looks like that was the sequence of events.
A very hard landing.
From the video, it looks like no apparent attempt to flair and the aircraft hit the runway hard.
The right undercarriage appears to have collapsed or broke off on impact, simultaneous with the starboard wing contacting the ground and snapping off.

4 sentences of speculation!

 

[BananaRepublic]

And yet...


4 sentences of speculation!

Not speculation, but observation of apparent events from the video and noting the first hand account of one of the surviving passengers.
There is no dispute or speculation that the aircraft hit the ground hard.
When I said no room for speculation, I was referring to speculation about why this happened, the cause.

Watch this video from Juan Brown’s Blancolirio channel.
He provides probably the most professional, analytical and sober coverage of aviation incidents, on the internet.

.

 

[thejuggler]

Just watched a video analysing the event and the wing being ripped off probably resulted in everyone surviving. The fire was the fuel stored in that wing tank. By the time the aircraft stopped that wing was burning well away from the fuselage.

 

[dosxuk]

Not speculation, but observation of apparent events from the video and noting the first hand account of one of the surviving passengers.

A very hard landing.

Speculation.

it looks like no apparent attempt to flair

Clearly speculation.

and the aircraft hit the runway hard.

Speculation.

The right undercarriage appears to have collapsed or broke off on impact, simultaneous with the starboard wing contacting the ground and snapping off.

Again, clearly speculation.

There is no dispute or speculation that the aircraft hit the ground hard.

There is however plenty of dispute about whether the aircraft hit the ground abnormally hard for the conditions, and whether it should cause the level of damage experienced. Furthermore, passengers are not in a position to comment on the hardness of the landing. Few have any experience of the difference between a hard-but-within-the-limits landing and a hard-but-requires-inspection landing. Furthermore the shock and stress of such an incident is known to "rewrite" memories - nobody is going to walk away going "we just crashed when we landed, but it was really smooth when we first touched down" - they're only really going to remember the big hit when everything went wrong.

Likewise there are plenty of pilots on the internet saying that the flare doesn't seem particularly abnormal for this type and conditions. In particular the rear engines mean you have a reduced flare, wanting to get it firmly planted on the ground with the snow means a reduced flare, and probably the best indication - an intact nose gear - means that it can't have taken a significant force from the landing (which it would have if there was no flare).

When I said no room for speculation, I was referring to speculation about why this happened, the cause.

Wouldn't you describe attributing the cause to a hard landing following no attempt to flare as being speculation - I would. It feels like most people who say "no speculation" are actually saying "I've worked this out, there's no need for further discussion".

 

[Cowley]

Alright, let’s get on with discussing it rather than banging the drum on whether it’s ok to speculate or not. Within reason on a transport discussion forum that’s what’s going to happen.

Where it becomes a problem is if people start saying things like it’s clearly the pilot’s fault! Etc.

Thanks

 

[GRALISTAIR]

BTW - if it feels like there are more plane crashes recently------

https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/19/business/airplane-crashes-statistics/index.html

CNN ---The crash landing of Delta Air Lines flight 4819 in Toronto is some of the scariest video I’ve ever seen. While thankfully there were no fatalities, videos like that are the stuff that nightmares are made of.
Monday’s crash landing doesn’t feel like an isolated incident, especially after last month’s collision of an American Airlines plane and a US Army helicopter that left 67 dead. It feels like the skies are becoming more dangerous.
But sometimes feelings can be deceiving. A look at the statistics suggests that the skies are about as friendly as they’ve ever been.
Take a look at January’s preliminary data from the National Transportation Safety Board.
It appears that last month there was a record low number of airplane accidents nationwide, when combining private and commercial airline flights. Most of the 62 total airplane accidents were on private flights, and that total number was 18 less than the 80 recorded in January 2024.
In fact, if the preliminary numbers hold, January 2025 will surpass the previous record for the lowest number of total accidents, with eight fewer than the prior record low of 70 from January 2012.
Ten of the accidents in January 2025 were, unfortunately, fatal, and one of those fatal incidents involved a commercial airliner. Obviously, any number above zero is too many, but 10 overall is an incredibly low number, historically speaking.

 

[edwin_m]

BTW - if it feels like there are more plane crashes recently------

https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/19/business/airplane-crashes-statistics/index.html

You may know about it, living there and all that, but I doubt many people in the UK are aware of the casualty rate in general aviation in the States. Not sure if it's just because there is so much more flying than over here, or whether the risk per mile flown is higher for some reason. But it still holds that commercial aviation is extremely safe - similar risk per mile to train travel over here but given Amtrak's safety record it must be much safer to fly (commercial) rather than taking the train in America.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

-------But it still holds that commercial aviation is extremely safe -

Absolutely 100% agree.

similar risk per mile to train travel over here --

A record the UK railway should be extremely proud of.

---but given Amtrak's safety record it must be much safer to fly (commercial) rather than taking the train in America.

I think the statistics agree with your statement. I prefer to fly but not because of safety concerns of Amtrak, it is because flying is so much more ubiquitous and convenient - and I say that even though our company owner has sold the company plane!

 

[Cloud Strife]

It says a great deal about the aircraft’s survivability

My understanding is that when the wing got torn off, all the fuel would have leaked out and so there was nothing to engulf the plane with. If the wing had stayed intact, then it might well have been a completely different story.

It'll be interesting to find out what caused the crash, because the landing doesn't seem terribly hard from my perspective. The flare looks to have been comparable to a typical CRJ-900 landing, and it seems that something happened in the last couple of seconds to push the right wing down. It may well end up being just a freak set of coincidences, with wind pushing the wing down and the wing somehow getting torn off in a very unlikely manner.

 

[edwin_m]

My understanding is that when the wing got torn off, all the fuel would have leaked out and so there was nothing to engulf the plane with. If the wing had stayed intact, then it might well have been a completely different story.

It'll be interesting to find out what caused the crash, because the landing doesn't seem terribly hard from my perspective. The flare looks to have been comparable to a typical CRJ-900 landing, and it seems that something happened in the last couple of seconds to push the right wing down. It may well end up being just a freak set of coincidences, with wind pushing the wing down and the wing somehow getting torn off in a very unlikely manner.

The Blancolirio video linked above did suggest it was a very hard landing with no flare, although he only had a couple of data points from tracking to base this on. Petter on Mentour Now has since said something similar. The flight data record should have more detail. These are both from pilots who certainly appear to know what they are talking about.

What surprises me is that the wing got slammed into the ground so hard that it broke off. Usually a bank on or after landing just results in the wingtip (or the engine cowling if underwing) scraping along the runway with a shower of sparks, causing damage but little threat to the airframe. I can only think that it must have dug into the dirt, which would put the aircraft well off the centreline on landing, and in the opposite direction to the crosswind.

 

[BananaRepublic]

My understanding is that when the wing got torn off, all the fuel would have leaked out and so there was nothing to engulf the plane with. If the wing had stayed intact, then it might well have been a completely different story.....

Do note that the other (port) wing didn't separate and that will also have contained fuel.

......It'll be interesting to find out what caused the crash, because the landing doesn't seem terribly hard from my perspective. The flare looks to have been comparable to a typical CRJ-900 landing,........

There was almost no flare, as noted by several professional pilots, including a former CRJ flyer.
It appears to be a hard landing, also remarked on by those pilots..
You can search YouTube for videos of CRJ's landing for comparison.

Reported elsewhere, the ADS-B data in the public realm, indicates a vertical speed in excess of 1000 fpm in the final seconds.
I've no idea of the accuracy of those reports.
An accurate record will come from the FDR analysis..

One pilot's online report says that a normal landings would be in the 200-300 fpm VS range, or less.
500-600 fpm would be a very firm, hard'ish landing.
A landing with a VS in excess of 600 fpm would be very hard and require a mandatory airframe and undercarriage inspection.

....What surprises me is that the wing got slammed into the ground so hard that it broke off. Usually a bank on or after landing just results in the wingtip (or the engine cowling if underwing) scraping along the runway with a shower of sparks, causing damage but little threat to the airframe. I can only think that it must have dug into the dirt, which would put the aircraft well off the centreline on landing, and in the opposite direction to the crosswind.

Frame by frame observation of the video, appears to show that the wing didn't impact the ground until the undercarriage had collapsed.
This was almost instantaneous.
This has been noted on at least one pilot's YouTube channel.
The wing impacted the ground near the wing root, with the wingtip initially lifting upwards, before hitting the ground as it detached from the fuselage.
It doesn't look like the wingtip contacted the ground (or snow), before the wing broke off.
The investigation will no doubt detail the sequence of events.

Without wanting to speculate too much, it's been mentioned elsewhere that the main undercarriage mounting points on this type, are on the rear wing spar.
Excessive undercarriage impact far beyond the design safety limits, will have instantaneously transferred all the energy into the rear wing spar.


.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

I have seen it reported that the Black Box has been recoveered and being examined as is of course the CVR - however, I am not sure the cockpit Voice Recorder will give much information.

 

[SLC001]

CVR is essential. Pilot error has not been eliminated, were procedures followed, if there was a mechanical issue were the crew aware of it, were alternatives considered etc. It is vital for the complete picture and especially if future similar accidents are to be prevented. In the past CVR has been used to establish if audible alarms went off.

 

[12LDA28C]

It's being reported that Delta is offering a no-strings compensation payment to anyone on board that flight.... an attempt to head off any potential lawsuits?

Delta offers $30,000 to each passenger in Toronto crash landing

There were no fatalities among the 76 passengers and four crew members in the accident Monday at Toronto-Pearson International Airport, although 21 people were injured.

fortune.com

 

[poffle]

Canadian Investigators have released a preliminary report. This is based solely on flight data recorder.

In the final seconds before touching down at Toronto's Pearson Airport at 2:12 p.m. ET in strong, gusty winds, the TSB report shows that the plane was descending at a rate of more than 1,100 feet per minute. The report notes the aircraft's operating manual states that a hard landing is defined as "[a] landing at a vertical descent rate greater than 600 ft/min."

In addition, the plane was banking at an angle of 7.1° to the right, and the pitch attitude was 1° nose up.

https://www.tsb.gc.ca/sites/default/files/2025-03/A25O0021-Preliminary-Report-ENG.pdf