A shocking video clip showed a Delta flight crashing at Toronto Pearson International Airport on Monday after a weekend of heavy snowfall.
The newly released footage showed the Mitsubishi CRJ-900LR jet, carrying 76 passengers and four crew members, flipping onto its roof after a wing was clipped while skidding down the runway and bursting into flames.
According to the airport's CEO, roughly 18 people sustained relatively minor injuries, but all 80 people on board miraculously survived the incident.
Here's the scary scene as it unfolded.
The Associated Press reported that "communications between the tower and pilot were normal on approach" as the jet attempted to land at around 2:15 p.m. as the wind reached 40 m.p.h.
Circulating video footage showed the scary aftermath of the jet turned upside down on the icy tarmac with firefighters extinguishing the remaining flames.
Another clip showed passengers safely debarking from the downed jet.
Breaking 911 shared an eyewitness clip of the passengers suspended while strapped to their seats and calmly awaiting evacuation after the jet flipped onto its roof.
Peter Carlson, a passenger traveling to Toronto for a paramedics conference, told CBC News that landing was a “forceful" event when the jet careened out of control on the tarmac.
"The next thing I know, there was kind of a blink, I was upside down and still strapped in," Carlson said, adding:
"It was cement and metal. The absolute initial feeling is just ... need to get out of this."
The Toronto crash was the latest in numerous recent aviation disasters since Republican President Donald Trump was sworn in for a second White House term.
Weeks after the fatal mid-air collision between an American Airlines commercial jet and a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter in Washington, D.C. on January 29, Trump fired crucial FAA workers as part of the administration's mass layoffs of government agencies targeted by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Elon Musk's advisory commission.
The air traffic control staff who were given termination notices over the weekend included maintenance mechanics, aeronautical information specialists, environmental protection specialists, aviation safety assistants, and management and program assistants.
The Delta flight that crashed in Toronto was under FAA supervision when it left Minneapolis but was guided by its Canadian counterpart upon landing.
Still, people grew more concerned about flight safety under Trump's administration in the wake of this latest incident.
People were also relieved to hear there were no casualties, and they remained impressed by the calm passengers seen in the footage.
David Soucie, a CNN safety analyst and former Federal Aviation Administration safety inspector, told the news channel, “Everything that could go wrong went wrong, yet 80 people survived the accident."
Advancements in aircraft design and seat safety prevented the crash from being “much worse," noted Soucie while drawing a comparison with the tragic accident in Denver in 1987 when a DC-9 aircraft similarly flipped over and killed 28 people.
The wing breaking off was a "good thing," according to the analyst.
“You don’t want that wing ripping the fuselage in half,” Soucie said, adding:
“You want to make sure that it breaks away as it’s supposed to let that aircraft slowly come to a stop and that really saved a lot of lives.”
Deborah Flint, CEO of Greater Toronto Airports Authority, told reporters:
“We are very grateful there was no loss of life and relatively minor injuries.”
@WhiteHouse/X
