Child among 17 hurt after Delta flight flips while landing at Toronto airport

(NEXSTAR) — Seventeen people, including a child, were injured after a Delta Air Lines flight from Minneapolis experienced an “incident upon landing” in Ontario, Canada, Monday afternoon.

While the cause of the incident remains under investigation, an audio recording revealed the pilots had been warned of a possible air flow bump in its path because of an aircraft in front of it.

Videos posted to social media and a live feed from the airport showed the plane resting on its roof on the tarmac as people walked away and crews doused the plane. Television news reports say the Delta flight flipped over on landing.

“Delta Connection flight 4819, operated by Endeavor Air using a CRJ900 aircraft, was involved in a single-aircraft accident at Toronto Pearson International Airport (YYZ) around 2:15 p.m. ET on Monday,” the company said in a statement to Nexstar. “Initial reports were that there are no fatalities. Several customers with injuries were transported to area hospitals. Our primary focus is taking care of those impacted.”

Delta CEO Ed Bastian added that “the hearts of the entire global Delta family are with those affected by today’s incident at Toronto-Pearson International Airport.”

A Delta Air Lines plane heading from Minneapolis to Toronto crashed at Toronto’s Pearson Airport, Monday, Feb. 17, 2025. (Teresa Barbieri/The Canadian Press via AP)A Delta Air Lines plane heading from Minneapolis to Toronto crashed at Toronto’s Pearson Airport, Monday Feb. 17, 2025. (Teresa Barbieri/The Canadian Press via AP)A Delta flight from Minneapolis to Toronto crashed and flipped over while landing and all 80 people on board were evacuated.This image taken from video provided by CTV shows emergency crews responding at Toronto Pearson Airport after a plane crash, Monday, Feb. 17, 2025. (CTV via AP)An aircraft from Delta Airlines sits upside down on the tarmac at Toronto Pearson International airport, Monday, Feb. 17, 2025. (Teresa Barbieri/The Canadian Press via AP)

Delta said there were 76 passengers and four crew members aboard.

“We are very grateful there was no loss of life and relatively minor injuries,” Deborah Flint, CEO of Greater Toronto Airports Authority, told reporters.

Paramedics initially reported that 19 people were injured in the crash, including three critical patients, but Flint classified the 17 injuries as “relatively minor.”

One of those injured, a pediatric patient, was rushed to Toronto’s SickKids hospital, officials with Ornge, an air ambulance and medical transport company, told Nexstar.

Also injured in the crash were a man in his 60s and a woman in her 40s, both of whom were rushed to a Toronto trauma center by air ambulance. No additional details about those injured were released.

“Emergency teams are responding,” the airport said in a post on the social platform X. “All passengers and crew are accounted for.”

Tower controllers were heard speaking with the crew of a medical helicopter that had just left Pearson and was returning to help with the crash. The plane came to a rest at the intersection of Runways 23 and 15L, the controller said. That’s not far from the start of the runway.

“Just so you’re aware, there’s people outside walking around the aircraft there,” a tower controller said.

“Yeah, we’ve got it. The aircraft is upside down and burning,” the medical helicopter pilot responded.

Association of Flight Attendants-CWA said one of its crews was working on the flight.

A statement from the FAA says all 80 people aboard the flight were evacuated. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada told Nexstar in a statement that it is deploying a team to investigate the crash.

Delta is encouraging customers to monitor their flight status using the company’s app, adding that it is working to connect with customers traveling “from, to or through” Toronto Pearson Intl. Airport.

Toronto Pearson is now showing numerous delayed or canceled arrivals and departures throughout the day.

Cause of incident unclear

It is too early to say what caused the plane to flip but weather may have played a factor.

According to the Meteorological Service of Canada, the airport was experiencing blowing snow and winds of 32 mph gusting to 40 mph. The temperature was about 16.5 degrees Fahrenheit.

“It’s very rare to see something like this,” said John Cox, CEO of aviation safety consulting firm Safety Operating Systems in St. Petersburg, Florida. “We’ve seen a couple of cases of takeoffs where airplanes have ended up inverted, but it’s pretty rare.”

An audio recording from the tower at Toronto Pearson International Airport shows the flight was cleared to land at about 2:10 p.m. local time. The tower warns the pilots of a possible air flow bump in the glide path as the plane comes into land because of a preceding aircraft in front of it.

“It sounds to me like a controller trying to be helpful, meaning the wind is going to give you a bumpy ride coming down, that you’re going to be up and down through the glide path,” Cox said.

Cox, who flew for U.S. Air for 25 years and has worked on NTSB investigations, said the CRJ900 aircraft is a proven aircraft that’s been in service for decades and does a good job of handling inclement weather.

“The weather conditions were windy. The wind was out of the west at 27 to 35 knots, which is about 38 miles an hour. So it was windy. But the airplanes are designed and certified to handle that. The pilots are trained and experienced to handle that.”

Among the questions that need to be answered, Cox said, was why plane was missing a right wing.

“If one wing is missing, it’s going to have a tendency to roll over,” he said. “Those are going to be central questions as to what happened to the wing and the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder. They will be found, if not today, tomorrow, and the Transportation Safety Board of Canada will read them out and they will have a very good understanding of what actually occurred here.”

The last major crash at Pearson was in Aug. 2, 2005, when an Airbus A340 landing from Paris skidded off the runway and burst into flames amid stormy weather. All 309 passengers and crew aboard Air France Flight 358 survived the crash.

The National Transportation Safety Board said it is leading a team of U.S. investigators to assist in the Canadian investigation.

Latest aviation incident of 2025

This is the latest in a string of incidents so far this year. In late January, all 67 passengers and crew aboard an American Airlines passenger jet and a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter died when the two collided near Washington, D.C. Six people aboard a Jet Rescue Air Ambulance and one person on the ground were killed when the flight crashed in Philadelphia just days later.

Ten people were killed when the small plane they were traveling in crashed into ice on the Bering Sea in Alaska earlier this month. One person died last week when a private jet owned by Mötley Crüe singer Vince Neil collided with another jet at the Scottsdale Airport in Arizona.

Two pilots were able to eject from the U.S. Navy jet they were flying last week moments before it crashed into the San Diego Bay area. They were quickly pulled from the water by a nearby fishing vessel and taken to a local hospital.

The CRJ900, a popular regional jet, was developed by Canadian aerospace company Bombardier. It’s in the same family of aircraft as the CRJ700, the type of plane involved in the midair collision near Reagan National Airport on Jan. 29.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.