A plane crashed and flipped on its back at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport on Monday afternoon, injuring at least 15 passengers and closing down the airport’s runways.
Departures and arrivals at Pearson resumed as of 5 p.m. ET, the airport said in an update, after they were shut down temporarily following the crash.
All 76 passengers and four crew members on the Delta Air Lines flight from Minneapolis are accounted for, the airport said in a post on X just before 3 p.m. ET.
Peel Regional Paramedic Services, which services Mississauga, Ont., where the airport is located just outside Toronto, told Radio-Canada that 15 passengers in total were hurt, after initially saying it believed eight people had been injured.
Delta Air Lines said in an update Monday evening that 18 people were injured, but Peel paramedics said that total includes three family members who accompanied the injured to the hospital.
Ornge, Ontario’s air ambulance service, said a child was taken to Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children with critical injuries, while a man in his 60s and a woman in her 40s were also taken to Toronto hospitals with critical injuries.
Three air ambulance helicopters and two critical care land ambulances were dispatched to the scene, Ornge said.
Toronto’s Pearson airport is responding to an emergency involving a plane arriving from Minneapolis Monday afternoon, the airport said in a post to X. Paramedics say they are dealing with eight patients involved in the emergency.
Peel Regional Police Const. Sarah Patten told Reuters that most of the passengers were unharmed, “but we’re still trying to make sure so we’re still on scene investigating.”
The airport said earlier in the day that it was expecting a busy day on Monday as airlines tried to catch up after 22 centimetres of snow fell over the weekend, causing a mass of delays and cancellations. More than 130,000 travellers were expected to board about 1,000 flights, it said in a post on Monday morning.
‘The aircraft … is upside down and burning’
Audio recording from Pearson’s air traffic control tower shows that Delta Air Lines Flight 4819 was cleared to land shortly after 2 p.m. and that the tower warned the pilots of a possible air flow “bump” in the glide path from an aircraft in front of it, according to a report from The Canadian Press.
There were no further conversations with the Delta flight until the tower confirmed that a plane had crashed, with air traffic controllers quickly redirecting traffic to accommodate the crash scene.
Audio conversations from ground crews at the airport recorded a burst of commotion from workers at about the same time, with someone yelling at another person to “get off the phone,” while another crew member described “a huge emergency.”
Several minutes later, air traffic control could be heard in the recording directing a medevac helicopter for landing, noting there are people walking around the aircraft.
“Yeah, we’ve got it,” the medevac responds. “The aircraft … is upside down and burning.”
The Delta Air Lines plane, a Mitsubishi CRJ-900LR, has capacity for 95 seats and was built by Bombardier Inc., according to an aircraft registration posted on FlightAware, an online flight tracking platform. It has been registered to Delta since January 2010, according to the website.
In an online update posted Monday afternoon, Delta Air Lines said it was aware of the crash involving Flight 4819, operated by subsidiary Endeavor Air.
“Our primary focus is taking care of those impacted,” the update said. “Delta is working to connect with customers travelling from, to or through YYZ who should also monitor the status of their flight via the Fly Delta app.”
Federal Transport Minister Anita Anand posted on X, formerly Twitter, that she’s closely following the “serious incident.”
“Passengers travelling across Canada today are advised to check the status of their flight before going to their airport due to traffic impacts from diverted flights,” she said.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada said it is sending a team to investigate the incident. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said on social media that it is assisting with the investigation.
Other airports have been accepting planes diverted from Pearson in light of the crash, including Hamilton International Airport and Montreal’s Trudeau International Airport.
Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow posted on X on Monday that she was relieved all passengers and crew were accounted for.
“Thank you to the first responders, crew and airport staff for their quick actions and commitment to keeping everyone safe,” she said.
Ontario Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie, Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford, Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner and NDP Leader Marit Stiles all expressed their relief on social media that there were no fatalities.
