Emergency crews responded after a Delta Air Lines regional jet flipped upside down upon landing at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport.

“Currently, numerous emergency crews are on the scene at Toronto Pearson Airport after a Delta Air Lines flight from Minneapolis-Saint Paul to Toronto, operated by Endeavor Air, crashed and landed upside down,” Rawsalerts wrote.

“The flight, Endeavor 4819, a CRJ-900 (N932XJ), reportedly had many passengers safely evacuate, though the exact number of injuries remains unknown. Authorities are assessing the situation, and emergency responders are working to secure the aircraft and assist those affected,” the post added.

It’s a miracle the plane did not explode after the wing came off and the plane flipped.

“Toronto Pearson is aware of an incident upon landing involving a Delta Airlines plane arriving from Minneapolis. Emergency teams are responding. All passengers and crew are accounted for,” Toronto Pearson stated.

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“Our union is responding to an incident in Toronto with Delta Air Lines Endeavor Flight 4819. AFA crew were working this flight. Reports are there are no fatalities. Please do not speculate on this incident as everyone works to gather information and support those involved,” the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA) said.

Per USA TODAY:

According to social media posts from FlightRadar24, a flight tracking website, the flight involved was Delta 4819 from Minneapolis to Toronto. It was operated by Endeavor Air for Delta Connection using a CRJ-900.

Other social media posts appeared to show the regional jet upside down on the tarmac in Toronto.

USA TODAY has reached out to Delta and the airport operators for more information.

“According to local officials, there are no reported casualties, and only eight injuries have been confirmed. The Delta flight was carrying approximately 80 passengers, all of whom have been safely evacuated. The cause of the crash remains unknown, and the situation is still developing,” Rawsalerts said in an update.

From the New York Post:

Emergency crews confirmed they were responding to an “incident” at the airport and that all passengers and crew members had been accounted for.

Delta Flight 4819, which took off from Minneapolis about 11:47 a.m., appears flipped on its back on a snowy runway, according to photos and video posted online.

At least eight people have been reported injured so far, according to CP24, but the severity of their injuries could not be immediately confirmed.

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The plane is a Mitsubishi CRJ-900LR, according to flight records.

The crash followed a weekend winter storm in the area which dumped nearly nine inches of snow on the airport, forcing crews to work overnight Sunday to clear key runways.

I thought this was a great analysis from friend and pilot MeetKevin, explaining what might have caused this:

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Kevin: Hey everyone, me Kevin here. I just saw the reports of Delta flight 4819 from Minneapolis into Toronto flipping on its head. We need to talk about what happened here. First of all, it’s a miracle that nobody has died—one person is in critical condition.

This is also why it’s very important to wear your seatbelt on landing. But the plane flipped upside down. We’re in Toronto; we just landed our plane—pressed upside down. Fire on sight, upside down, everybody.

Most people appear to be okay. We’re all getting off, though there’s some smoke on a snowy runway with windy conditions. We’re going to talk about the wind in just a moment, but the plane flipped upside down and the wing broke off. Now, you might not know this about aviation—and that’s okay—but the wings are really important because that’s where your fuel is stored.

There’s a lot of fuel on board—this one was topped off. When the wing snaps off, the fuel leaks out, and it usually doesn’t take much of a spark to ignite it. Especially when you have carbon fiber components, but when you have a metal, like an aluminum fuselage, skidding across the runway, it usually ignites the fuel that’s spilling everywhere. This, instead, is kind of like the Titan submersible, anyway.

Talking about this Delta flight, what’s remarkable is that based on the early information we have, we don’t know exactly what happened. We do know that this was a CRJ900 with a maximum crosswind component reported of 27 knots—though some say you might be able to go up to a 35-knot maximum crosswind configuration or performance capability. In other words, if you have winds pushing the plane from the side at more than, say, 27 to 35 knots (let’s use 27 to be safe), you run the risk of the plane losing its ability to stay upright. In fact, when you taxi planes, you usually conduct wind corrections on the taxiway because you don’t want to flip.

So if you hop in and get a crosswind, I might actually move my joystick or yoke—whatever you have—and dive away from the wind. We say this because we’re trying not to get the plane flipped. In training, you’re taught about diving away from the wind because this really does happen; it’s a real issue. At this point, it’s all speculation as to what exactly happened, but what could have happened? How can a plane flip or get lifted up to the point where it flips over? This is just speculation, but here are the facts—and I’ll give you the speculation part.

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We know this was a snowy runway. Imagine: a snowy runway with storms coming in. There were rumors—maybe they’re true—that flights into the same airport were canceled the day before because of the wind conditions. So it’s snowy, which means you’ve got a slippery runway. If you touch down a little late or tap on those brakes—just a little, but too hard—like a car, you’re going to lock up the brakes.

Planes have brakes too, along with reverse thrusters. Even on a jet engine with a reverse thruster, you’re just pushing the plane; the reverse thrusters push the plane down onto the runway to get more braking traction. That’s the point of reverse thrusters—they don’t actually thrust in reverse, they actually thrust upward (probably not the best name for it). Anyway, let’s say you apply too much brake and you start slipping—a risk that can happen. This is the speculative part: I want to be clear we must be respectful of the people injured, and the airport shut down.

This is a major incident coming at a crazy time in aviation. If you touch down and start sliding, something else that could happen is losing directional control of the plane. If you’re on that runway centerline and you start slipping off to the side, you might try to correct with the rudder. But if you’re already locked up and slipping toward the side of the runway—which it doesn’t look like is what happened here—you might try to correct back. The problem is, a quick correction back could lead to the unfortunate case where you’re actually leaning into more of a crosswind, getting an even more direct crosswind that could then potentially flip you.

Think about that for a moment: picture the plane going straight, you land, then—oh no—we’re veering over. So, you veer over to the left and then try to veer back to the right to correct to the centerline. Now, all of a sudden, because we have winds at 25 gusting up to 35, you’ve got some strong winds. Winds at 25 gusting 35 mean a gust could push you over your maximum capability limit for this plane. We know some of the limitations of the plane—27 to 35 knots max, depending on which model you have—but the details will come out later.

What we know is that the winds were at least 21, and they were gusting 5 to 10 knots more—potentially even more. Sometimes the weather information is minute-to-minute perfect on what the gusts are. So now you’re correcting and, at the same time, you’re correcting into another angle. You look at the plane from a different angle—as if you’re correcting—and then you get hit with a crosswind at the same time that you’re making your correction on that slippery runway. You don’t even have to be that far off the centerline to really get a rollover, where a crosswind picks the plane up and flips it over. That’s where you obviously get the wing breaking off.

In my opinion, if we think of a flip-over, we might imagine the plane got picked up from the back, which happens with smaller planes. You’ll see the plane picked up in the back and flip straight over. In that case, I don’t think you would see a wing broken off. So, I personally speculate that a wing would not have broken off on a flip-straight-over, unless, of course, after that it tipped over and the wing ended up right next to it. This looks instead like the plane was going straight, had some kind of slip, and then got rolled over—that’s my take, purely speculative.

Now, let’s get back to the facts. There were 80 people on board, plus a crew. It is an absolute miracle that this thing did not blow up. They probably had minimums in terms of fuel, right? You’re not going to have full fuel tanks like this puppy because you’re at the end of your approach, so you might have about 50 minutes to an hour of fuel left. You still have a good amount of fuel—maybe around 250 gallons, which is just enough for a one-hour flight. That could have been a blessing that this happened on landing.

Something else to remember is that the vast majority of plane accidents occur on landing. People always say “take off and land,” but takeoffs and landings combined account for over 50% of accidents—landings specifically make up somewhere around 45%, maybe even up to 53% of accidents. Landings are definitely the riskier part, as we’ve seen with recent events. Then again, there’s also the potential for disorientation during takeoff, like the crash in Philadelphia—it’s a crazy time for aviation.

But here’s what’s going on: let’s hope that the person in critical condition and the other seven people injured make a full recovery as soon as possible. Thoughts and prayers—nobody died, and it’s a blessing that the plane did not blow up. Thank you so much for watching, and wow.

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