Two runways remain closed but operations have resumed at Toronto Pearson International Airport after a Delta Connection CRJ 900 crashed, flipped and broke apart on landing, injuring 18 of the 80 people onboard. There were no fatalities among the 76 passengers and four crew members but a child and two adults had serious injuries. The plane's wings and tail detached but the fuselage remained intact. The flight originated in Minneapolis and the crash occurred about 2:45 p.m. local time. Most of the occupants were U.S. citizens and 22 were Canadian.
If you watch the touchdown (see RT and twitter/X link) it was at a very, very high rate of descent that flattened the U/C immediately and broke at least the left wing completely off. The left wing was very slightly lower. I won’t speculate on what preceded this.
This is going to be more about the high descent rate and no apparent flare than much else. Might be more complicated than it appears. Was the ILS shaded by another aircraft? Did visibility degrade depth perception, such as happens in skiing? Did a wind gust suddenly subside, subtracting 30-40kts from the airspeed?
The video I saw on CTV this morning showed a pronounced drop of the nose in last couple of seconds before touchdown. Hate to speculate, but if I had to I would suspect stall due to wind shear. Kudos to Pearson emergency crews that got the fire under control quickly. Of course,wings being broken clear of fuselage also hslped.
In the video I saw that was apparently taken from a car dash camera, it looked like a rather flat hard landing. Have to wait for more analysis as to why.
A lot of questions will need to be answered. For me, I would like to know why the fire chief, in his press briefing, tried to deflect all blame away from the airport stating that the runway was “dry”, and that there was “no crosswind“.
The landing video on X shows the plane roll right just before touchdown. It landed on its right gear which collapsed, then the right wing hit and was at least partially torn off, fuel from the wing ignited, it skidded like that for a little and then flipped over.
From the video there doesn’t appear to be any flare for the landing. The aircraft just descended flat onto the runway at a high descent rate. Your theory about wind shear seems pretty plausible.
I’m interested in the flight experience of both pilots. I recently returned from a dive trip and while hanging around for my flight, observed some flight crews barely past the clearasil stage.
A good intelligent discussion of what is discernible from the video. I did not see a flare but the nose may have dropped. another person stated could eb wind shear. If blowing 40 knots that could very well be quite real esp as a 40 degree crosswind is nothing to be taken lightly. While 27 Kts is CRJ 700 900 max crosswind…some people forget that it is the crosswind component that is the limitation . (ie a little trig is required). Godspeed to recovery for those injured .
From the video I saw a very high sink rate, the nose was very aggressively lowered just as the mains were touching. The right main gear filed on touchdown, almost simultaneously the right wing was failing upward at the fuselage and spilling fuel which caused a large fireball which didn’t last long because the wing and the fire were left behind.
This was a terrible landing, likely far in excess of the design limits for the main landing gear.
Ironically the nose gear which slammed into the runway, appears to be intact after the airplane comes to rest upside down.
Not a stall. The pilot flying very aggressively lowered the nose a few feet above the runway. A severe gust would be countered by holding the pitch angle and simultaneously applying maximum power
The DC9 will survive a no flare landing from a stable 600 ft minute descent. As the airplane enters ground effect the descent reduces to 300 ft/min with no flare.
I had the misfortune of flying with new Captains who were supposed to make all the landings for their first 100 hours. Seven short legs, the first landing was terrible and they went steadily downhill for the rest of the day. I desperately wanted to tell them to sit on their hands and I will teach you how to land the airplane. I kept my mouth shut and hoped for the best. I was afraid of losing my job even though I was long past probation. I went from a Beech 18 to right seat on the DC9 and never made a marginal landing in 8000 hours.
I suspect that the gusty crosswind had blown snow onto the runway, and the pilot was not able to determine the height above the it, and didn’t flare and slammed the aircraft hard onto the runway. ??
An old pilot saying, any landing you can walk away from is a good landing.
Plus, though critical for some, all survived. This is to give thanks.
If you step very carefully through the car video you see a firm decent, you see the mains hitting. The nose dropped from drag after “something” dragged on the runway (I would figure the wing) and given the speed of the transition from “flight” to crash, the pilots did not have any real input in those moments.
Was it a too steep descent and break the gear?
Was it a gust that just F’ed up a controlled landing in a situation that could have dictated a go around, but too late?
Was it … well something?
At the moment, best thing is to let the experts put the story together. I am just glad no one died because that…that was a miracle it did not turn into something worse.
No fatalities but they do not release the name of the pilot?
It’s reminiscent of the 2023 Navy P8A hard landing in Hawaii where we still don’t know who was flying the aircraft! Not sure why…
Joe Hopwood is correct that the RT wing broke off in the footage taken from within a vehicle showing the pancake landing from the right side and eventually from behind. The X footage I referred to was probably from a security camera and was quite fogged and taken from the left side and showed the left wing flattening in smoke.
But here’s a question -and maybe it’s an artifact from the vehicle’s windscreen or my fevered imagination:
On the latter footage at 13 or 14 seconds there looks like a sequence of black puffs from behind the horizontal stabiliser and a second set just before touchdown. Any idea what that is about?
