Passengers leave a Delta Air Lines CRJ-900 jet after it crashed on landing at Toronto Pearson International Airport on Feb. 17, 2025 in a still image from video.Peter Koukov/Reuters
The Delta Air Lines plane that crash-landed at Toronto’s main airport in February came in at a high rate of descent and tilted to the right before the landing gear gave way and a fiery crash ensued, Canada’s aviation safety investigator says.
The findings were released on Thursday in a preliminary report by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada. The report does not reach any conclusions, and is another step in a lengthy probe into the crash on a wintry afternoon at Toronto Pearson International Airport.
“It is too early to draw conclusions as to the causes of this accident,” the TSB said in a statement.
Delta Flight 4819, operated by subsidiary Endeavor Air, crashed on Feb. 17, losing a wing and its tail before sliding to a halt upside down. Twenty-one people aboard the Bombardier-made Mitsubishi CRJ900 were treated at hospital, but there were no fatalities.
The TSB said the plane landed with its nose pitched upward at an angle of one degree, at an air speed of 134 knots and a rate of descent of 1,110 feet a minute. All these measures vary from the procedures in the flight operations manual, written by the manufacturer and adapted by the airline, the TSB said.
A voice alarm calling out “sink rate” sounded in the cockpit 2.6 seconds before touchdown, warning the pilots the rate of descent was too great, the report says.
“They are well exceeding what the manufacturer expected them to land at,” said David McNair, a former investigator with the TSB.
According to the operations manual, the nose pitch should be higher and the rate of descent lower. The landing gear is built to absorb a descent rate of 720 feet a minute. Mr. McNair said the rightward slant is typical for a CRJ900 landing in the conditions that day, but the air speed on landing of 136 knots was slower than the 149 knots procedures call for.
“That’s really where I think some of the problems lie,” he said. “The aircraft energy was reduced and the air speed went down below where it should be.”
The report says the runway had been recently plowed, and the weather was -9 C with wind blowing at up to 35 knots – gusts Mr. McNair called manageable.
The first officer, who had 1,422.3 hours total flight time and 13 months experience at the airline, was landing the plane with the captain in the adjacent seat monitoring the flight, the TSB said. The captain has worked for the airline since 2007 and had 3,570 hours total flight time.
Mr. McNair said the first officer’s experience was “adequate” but that experience does not always equate to skill.
Delta and Endeavor Air said they will not comment on the TSB report “out of respect for the integrity of this work that will continue through their final report.”
The airlines said that “for everyone at Endeavor Air and Delta, nothing is more important than the safety of our customers and our people. That’s why we remain fully engaged as participants in the investigation led by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada.”
Editor's note: Video contains profanity. A passenger on the Delta plane that crashed in Toronto on Monday captured video as they evacuated and were then confronted by the scene of the upside down jet.
The Globe and Mail
The TSB preliminary report paints a picture of the chaos inside the aircraft, as some passengers exited with their carry-on baggage. A passenger had to rip off the unhinged washroom door to clear a path for a flight attendant.
Some passengers were soaked in jet fuel and doused by fire retardant by emergency crews. Jet fuel was flowing over the forward emergency exit, forcing most people to use the rear. The cockpit door would not open, so the pilots left through the emergency hatch in the ceiling.
“Some passengers had difficulty releasing the buckles on their safety belts due to being inverted,” the report says. “Some of the injuries sustained by the passengers occurred when they unbuckled their safety belts and fell to the ceiling.”
Meanwhile, U.S. lawsuits against Delta and its Endeavour subsidiary on behalf of some of the passengers allege the crew’s “gross negligence and recklessness” caused the crash. The suits, filed in Minnesota court last week, seek unspecified damages on behalf of the complainants who were “violently thrown about the cabin and suffered extreme injuries and emotional distress.”
One statement of claim says that “among an extensive litany of errors and omissions, the Flight 4819 flight crew failed to observe the most fundamental procedures for a landing approach into [the airport], failed to appropriately monitor flight conditions on approach, and failed to communicate and react in the cockpit to those flight conditions.”
Delta declined to comment on the lawsuits.
Jim Brauchle, a lawyer representing the complainants, said his firm has filed about 10 such lawsuits, with more to come: “We represent 18 passengers to date,” he said.
The lawsuits, which contain statements not proven in court, allege the airlines “inadequately trained and supervised” the pilots, who “failed to comply with the most rudimentary cockpit resource management protocols.”