Multiple people injured after plane flips upside down on landing in Toronto, no casualties reported

A Delta Airlines plane flipped upon arrival at Toronto’s Pearson Airport and ended up on its roof Monday.

Toronto Pearson Fire Chief Todd Aitken said 18 passengers were taken to the hospital. Earlier in the day, Ornge air ambulance said it was transporting one pediatric patient to Toronto’s SickKids hospital and two injured adults to other hospitals in the city.

Emergency personnel reached the plane within a few minutes and Aitken said the response “went as planned.” He said "the runway was dry and there was no cross-wind conditions.”

The airport confirmed on X that an “incident” occurred with the Delta flight from Minneapolis and that 76 passengers and four crew are accounted for. Delta said in a statement the accident happened at 3:30pm.

Video from the scene showed the plane upside down on the snowy tarmac as emergency workers hosed it down.

The plane was somewhat obscured by snow from a winter storm that hit Toronto over the weekend.

Delta said in a statement that “initial reports were that there are no fatalities."

"Several customers with injuries were transported to area hospitals. Our primary focus is taking care of those impacted," the airline added.

Ontario’s Premier Doug Ford said on X he is "relieved there are no casualties after the incident at Toronto Pearson.” Toronto is the capital of Ontario.

Ornge air ambulance said it was transporting one paediatric patient to Toronto’s SickKids hospital and two adults with critical injuries to other hospitals in the city.

“Emergency teams are responding,” the airport said in a post on the social platform X. “All passengers and crew are accounted for.”

Weather conditions possibly responsible

It is too early to say what caused the plane to flip but weather may have played a factor. According to the Meteorological Service of Canada, the airport was experiencing blowing snow and winds of 51 kilometres per hour gusting to 65 kilometres per hour. The temperature was about -8.6°C.

An audio recording from the tower at Toronto Pearson International Airport shows the flight was cleared to land at about 2:10pm local time. The tower warns the pilots of a possible air flow bump in the glide path as the plane comes into land because of a preceding aircraft in front of it.

"It’s very rare to see something like this,” said John Cox, CEO of aviation safety consulting firm Safety Operating Systems in St. Petersburg, Florida. “We’ve seen a couple of cases of takeoffs where airplanes have ended up inverted, but it’s pretty rare.”

Cox, who flew for US Air for 25 years and has worked on NTSB investigations, said the CRJ900 aircraft is a proven aircraft that’s been in service for decades and does a good job of handling inclement weather.

“The weather conditions were windy. The wind was out of the west at 27 to 35 knots, which is about 38 miles an hour. So it was windy. But the airplanes are designed and certified to handle that. The pilots are trained and experienced to handle that."

It is at least the fourth major aviation mishap in North America in the past month. A commercial jetliner and an Army helicopter collided near the nation’s capital on 29 January, killing 67 people. A medical transportation plane crashed in Philadelphia on 31 January, killing the six people on board and another person on the ground and 10 were killed in a plane crash in Alaska.