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A Delta Air Lines jet flipped over while landing in Toronto. All 80 aboard survived

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

An investigation is underway to understand how a Delta Air Lines flight ended up upside-down on a runway at Toronto's Pearson International Airport. Seventeen people were injured, at least two critically, on Monday after the commuter plane arriving from Minneapolis crash-landed and flipped over on the tarmac. All 80 people on board, passengers and crew, survived. NPR's Jackie Northam reports.

JACKIE NORTHAM, BYLINE: It was shortly after 2 p.m. when Delta Air Lines Flight 4819 was coming in for landing at Toronto Pearson International Airport. Winds were gusting about 40 miles an hour, and there had been heavy snowfall in the area for the past three weeks. The CRJ-900 commuter jet crashed on landing, flipped over and laid belly up on the snowy tarmac, its right wing sheared off.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Everything - drop it. Come on.

NORTHAM: A video posted on social media by passenger Pete Koukov showed crew trying to help people quickly off the plane. Another passenger, John Nelson, describes the scene outside.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

JOHN NELSON: Our plane crashed. It's upside-down. Fire department is on-site.

NORTHAM: Emergency crews work to put out a fire and take the injured for help.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

DEBORAH FLINT: Airport emergency workers mounted a textbook response, reaching the site within minutes and quickly evacuating the passengers.

NORTHAM: Deborah Flint is president and CEO of Pearson Airport. During a press conference, she said there were no fatalities in the crash and that some of the passengers have been reunited with family and friends.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

FLINT: We do expect that there will be some operational impact and some delays at the airport over the next few days while the two runways remain closed for the investigation.

NORTHAM: Since the flight took off from Minneapolis, national transportation safety boards in the U.S. and Canada will work together to determine the cause of the crash. The Canadian crash comes less than a month after a midair collision between an American Airlines jet and a U.S. military helicopter killed 67 people at Washington, D.C.'s, Reagan National Airport.

Jackie Northam, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Jackie Northam is NPR's International Affairs Correspondent. She is a veteran journalist who has spent three decades reporting on conflict, geopolitics, and life across the globe - from the mountains of Afghanistan and the desert sands of Saudi Arabia, to the gritty prison camp at Guantanamo Bay and the pristine beauty of the Arctic.

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SOMOS CONNECTICUT es una iniciativa de Connecticut Public, la emisora local de NPR y PBS del estado, que busca elevar nuestras historias latinas y expandir programación que alza y informa nuestras comunidades latinas locales. Visita CTPublic.org/latino para más reportajes y recursos. Para noticias, suscríbase a nuestro boletín informativo en ctpublic.org/newsletters.

The independent journalism and non-commercial programming you rely on every day is in danger.

If you’re reading this, you believe in trusted journalism and in learning without paywalls. You value access to educational content kids love and enriching cultural programming.

Now all of that is at risk.

Federal funding for public media is under threat and if it goes, the impact to our communities will be devastating.

Together, we can defend it. It’s time to protect what matters.

Your voice has protected public media before. Now, it’s needed again. Learn how you can protect the news and programming you depend on.