(CNN) — Stiff winds blew over Canada’s Toronto Pearson Airport Monday afternoon as a slim aircraft, cleared by air traffic controllers to land, and its 80 passengers and crew approached the tarmac as snow whipped in the air. But within moments, the plane crashed into the runway, sending fire crews scrambling to extinguish the rising flames around the overturned jet.
Everyone aboard the Delta flight from Minneapolis survived the crash. Video obtained by CNN shows the plane landing hard on the runway, with the plane’s rear landing gear buckling and the right wing soon shearing away in a fireball. The fuselage rolled over as it skid, eventually leaving it belly-up, streaked with black residue. Inside, seat-belted passengers were suspended from their seats.
Twenty-one people were taken to hospitals with injuries, including a child listed in good condition Monday, officials said.
“We are very grateful there was no loss of life and relatively minor injuries,” Deborah Flint, CEO of the Greater Toronto Airports Authority, told reporters.
The harrowing incident briefly halted traffic at Canada’s busiest airport and is certain to raise questions amid heightened flight safety concerns in the US. The crash is the fourth major aviation accident in North America in the past month and comes three weeks after an American Airlines plane collided midair with a US Army Black Hawk helicopter in Washington, DC, killing all 67 people aboard.
In Toronto, passengers evacuated the upside-down CRJ900 aircraft – operated by Endeavor Air, a regional airline for Delta – as first responders doused its fuselage with foamy fire retardant. Evacuees jumped several feet from the plane’s exit doors and stumbled across the slick tarmac clutching jackets and small carry-on bags.
Canadian and American investigators will now work to determine what caused the crash. Here’s what we know about the moments leading up to and following the crash, pieced together by flight and weather data, video footage and witness accounts.
‘The aircraft is upside down and burning’
Delta Flight 4819 departed Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport on Monday and approached its destination at Toronto Pearson International Airport shortly after 2 p.m. local time, the airline said.
Strong winds had been buffeting the Toronto area all day, and airport personnel had worked through the night to clear remnants of the approximately 8 inches of snow that blanketed the airport over the weekend.
As the plane neared the airport, air traffic controllers notified its pilots of about 38 mph wind gusts. “Might be a slight bump in the glide path,” the air traffic worker said. “There will be an aircraft in front of you.”
Within two minutes, the plane descended hard onto the runway. Soon, the right wing contacted the ground and was sheared away in a fireball, and the aircraft rolled over to that side while sliding along the landing strip. The rollover left passengers hung aloft in their seats, according to passengers John Nelson and Peter Koukov.
Koukov said he “didn’t know anything was the matter” until the plane hit the ground and felt like it had turned sideways, he said on CNN’s “Erin Burnett Out Front.”
“When we got finished, I was upside down, everybody else was there as well,” Nelson said. “We tried to get out of there as quickly as possible.” Once he was out of the plane, there was another explosion but “luckily the firefighters got out of there,” he said.
A medical helicopter flying nearby rerouted its path to assist with the crash. As the helicopter pilots approached, air traffic control workers warned them that people were out and walking around the aircraft, according to LiveATC audio.
“Yeah, we’ve got it. The aircraft is upside down and burning,” the helicopter pilot responded.
‘We were … hanging like bats’
Fire engines raced onto the tarmac and began spraying thick sheets of white fire retardant over the aircraft’s battered fuselage. It’s unclear where the fire originated, but video shows the plane’s fiberglass frame had melted around the engine and thick black streaks stained its side.
After the aircraft came to a standstill, “we were upside down hanging like bats,” Koukov said. He was able to unbuckle himself and stand upright on the ceiling of the plane, but some people needed help getting down from their seats.
Nelson said the scene was chaotic as he and his seatmate released themselves from their belts and fell to the floor. People were yelling for them to get out of the plane, and they made a beeline towards an opening, he said.
Peter Carlson, another passenger, told CNN newsgathering partner CBC that “it was cement and metal” in the upside-down plane. “The absolute initial feeling is just need to get out of this.”
“What I saw was everyone on that plane suddenly became very close, in terms of how to help one another, how to console one another,” Carlson told CBC.
“That was powerful, but there was definite: ‘What now? Who is leading? How do we find ourselves away from this?” he said.
The crash prompted Toronto Pearson International to temporarily shut down all five of its runways Monday afternoon, causing delays at the country’s busiest airport and forcing several flights to divert to nearby airports.
In the overturned plane, flight attendants helped passengers crawl out of open exit doors, urging people to leave belongings behind, though some still exited with bags in tow, video from Koukov shows.
Evacuees jumped several feet from the door frames onto the snow-covered ground as sprays of fire retardant rained overhead. Some people hugged themselves as protection from the wind as they moved away from the plane, looking back at what they just endured.
While some people were injured, most seemed OK, Nelson said. But he was left stressed and shaky following the few seconds it took for the plane to turn over.
CNN’s Amanda Jackson, Aaron Cooper, Elise Hammond, Alexandra Skores, Max Saltman and Michael Rios contributed to this report.
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