Passengers are recounting their experience being "fully sideways" and upside down after their plane crashed on a Toronto airport runway on Monday, as investigators continue to probe the accident that left 21 people injured.
Delta Flight 4819 from Minneapolis to Toronto crashed on landing around 2:30 p.m. at Toronto Pearson Airport.
Video footage that appeared to have captured that moment shows a plane bursting into flames as soon as it touched down on the runway, skidding and overturning seconds later, leaving passengers scrambling to flee the flipped plane as firefighters arrived to douse the flames.
Officials said there were 80 people on the plane, including 76 passengers and four crew members, and all survived. Delta Air Lines said as of Wednesday morning, 20 out of 21 passengers initially taken to local hospitals have been released.
Pete Koukov, a passenger on the flight, posted a social media video Monday showing passengers ducking out of the flipped plane as workers assisted them and emergency crews hosed the aircraft with water.
Koukov told NBC News that he didn't notice anything was wrong until the plane reached the ground.
"The wheels touched down ... I was in the window seat on the lookers left side, and then all of a sudden, I just remember being fully sideways," he told the outlet on Tuesday.
John Nelson, another passenger, described the scene to CNN as chaotic, describing the plane rolling over on the tarmac.
"When we got finished, I was upside down, everybody else was there as well," Nelson told the outlet on Tuesday. "We tried to get out of there as quickly as possible."
Nelson said passengers rushed to unbuckle themselves. As they did so, they fell to the floor — the ceiling of the plane — and hurried towards the exit, he added.
People helped others get out of their seats, he said, as others yelled for them to get out.
Passenger Peter Carlson recalled the plane's landing as "very forceful." He told CBC News on Monday that it’s "really amazing" he survived.
"One minute you're landing, kind of waiting to see your friends and your people, and the next minute you're physically upside down," he told the broadcaster.
Paramedics previously said that at least three people, including a child, were sent to hospital with critical but non-life-threatening injuries. Others were reported to have minor injuries.
Cory Tkatch, a commander with Peel Region paramedics, said at a news conference Tuesday that passengers had "a multitude of different injuries," including back sprains, head injuries, anxiety, nausea and vomiting due to the jet fuel exposure.
At that same press conference, the airport's fire chief, Todd Aitken, called the emergency response "textbook" and said crews were on the scene within minutes, adding that most passengers had "self-evacuated" when responders arrived.
"Upon arrival, the crew did witness spot fires," said Aitken. "Once the fires were knocked down, the crews did make entry and performed primary search and rescue."
Nick Costigan, another passenger, recounted to the Toronto Star that the metal of the plane had screeched against the runway as it touched down. After he released himself from his seat, he stood and smelled jet fuel, he said.
"It was time to go," he told the Star on Tuesday, then recalled how firefighters yelled at passengers to get away from the plane after an explosion.
He told the newspaper that he and other passengers were guided towards buses for those injured and uninjured, and some began to feel nauseous due to the jet fuel smell.
"The whole bus smelled like gas," he said.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada, which is leading the probe into the crash, said Tuesday its investigators have sent the plane's cockpit and flight data recorders to a lab for further analysis.
Deborah Flint, CEO of the Greater Toronto Airports Authority, said at a press conference that two main runways are closed and passengers at Pearson airport should expect delays or cancellations. The wreckage of the aircraft was expected to remain on the tarmac for 48 hours, she said.
"This would not be a time for us to have a theory or to speculate on what caused the crash," Flint said Tuesday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 19, 2025.
The Canadian Press
