Crews have responded to an accident on a runway at Toronto Pearson International Airport involving a Delta flight. Images appear to show the aircraft flipped on the runway. The CRJ 900 operated by Endeavor Air was arriving from Minneapolis. Toronto Airport says all crew and passengers are "accounted for" but their condition has not been characterized. Toronto has been dealing with back-to-back blizzards that have dropped two feet of snow. Developing story.
Holy $%#@ that could have been worse! Thank God no fatalities. Dramatic incident. Upside down and wingless, but no fire or fatalities, a miracle. Does look like crap weather, wind, and icy day. Perhaps contaminated runway.
Would not have thought it was possible even with conditions for the CRJ to end up on its back losing both wings and the tail in the process. Thank goodness no fatalities.
Winds were about 25 knots gusting to 40 from about 270 degrees at the time. A ton of snow fell yesterday. All 80 accounted for, no immediate fatalities. Three critically injured and eight with minor injuries. Critically injured include 1 male and 1 female adult and child. All three were flown to local hospitals, the child was flown to Sick Childrens Hospital, probably the best known paediatric hospital in Canada.
Sort of nitpicking, but - an airliner upside down and without its wings should be called an “accident,” rather than an “incident,” whether or not the conditions that created it could have been worse.
I was thinking the same thing–must’ve been one helluva roll to sheer both wings and the tail feathers. A testament to Bombardier’s structural integrity and miraculous that everyone survived (and that there was (apparently) no fire). However, another interesting study in human behavior with passengers milling by the fuselage and, of course, filming the event …
I wonder if the roll was caused by a spar failure in the wings or if the wings failing was a side effect of rolling like that, if it was caused by a crosswind or wind in general, it would have most like been on 15L, 15R, 33L, 33R because the wind was coming from roughly 240 degrees and 25 gusting 40 knots.
Alex, the last recording of the exchange with tower was winds out of 270 degrees at 24 gusting to 33, with a/c landing 23 the northern runway. So a 40 degree x-wind would result in a cross component of around 23 knots, assuming no higher gusts and/or variable wind direction with a greater angle. In addition, weather reports are that 9 inches of snow accumulation fell yesterday. I’m curious as to how tall the berms were at the edge of the plowed area of the runway, they are rarely plowed full width. I can see a circumstance where a wing catches a berm with the flying pilot having to aggressively maneuver the a/c with low altitude mechanical turbulence tossing the ship about. I would also like to know the Runway Condition Report (RCR) numbers.
Toronto Sun newspaper is claiming that “…the tower warned the pilots of a possible air flow “bump” in the glide path from an aircraft in front of it.”
No indication of what model of aircraft preceded the crashed airplane.
Big aircraft of course have strong vortices off of wing tips.
Big metal aircraft can affect ILS beam but signal should rapidly return to normal, as aircraft would be moving (rather than waiting in position to enter runway).
Investigators will have much information as crew and recorders survived.
Keith, I’m betting the “warning” was due to Glideslope signal deflection because of an airplane waiting for departure at the runway end, inside of the ILS critical area since the weather was above the 800’ ceiling and 2 miles vis requirement to mandate use of the ILS hold lines for departures.
Some pilots never learn how to land in stiff crosswinds…CBS weather man had the airplane landing with a crab angle…this will invariably will cause a roll down the runway.
There have been several comments in the media about “strong crosswinds” up to 40 mph. The winds at the airport were reported as 25kts gusting to 40kts (29mph to 46mph). The actual runway heading for RWY 23 is 237° which is only 33° off the 270° reported wind direction. So the crosswind components were 14kts to 20kts for the 25kts to 40kts of wind reported. The CRJ-900 has a crosswind limit for landing of 32 kts. The crew were well withing the crosswind limitations so I’d be looking elsewhere for the causes.
Guess you’re not qualified on airliners, because landing in a crab is an approved technique, especially for jets with wing mounted engines. All Boeings recommend crabbed landings to avoid the upwind engine from impacting the runway over a certain XW component (value depends upon the aircraft model and config).
Projecting bug smasher experience onto other types is a mistake, and vice versa.
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