Video footage from TMZ captured the moment part of the aircraft ignited in flames during the landing. Firefighters swiftly responded to extinguish the fire. Passenger Pete Carlson described the experience as a “forceful event,” recalling the jarring sounds of “concrete and metal” upon impact. Passengers, including Carlson, found themselves suspended upside down in their seats, having to maneuver onto the cabin ceiling before exiting the overturned plane. Miraculously, all 80 individuals on board survived the crash. Delta later reported that 21 injured passengers were taken to local hospitals, with 19 already discharged. Delta has assured the public of forthcoming updates.
Witnesses report on the remarkable survival of all passengers in the Toronto plane crash. Were you a witness to the incident? Please reach out to us.
The cause of the plane overturning has been scrutinized by BBC Verify, which analyzed communications between the aircraft and air traffic control. No warning signs of trouble were evident in the exchanges. Aviation professionals Marco Chan and Ismo Aaltonen confirmed this after reviewing the audio recordings. Chan suggested that the plane made a hard landing, possibly due to an unusually high descent rate, causing a wheel to touch down first and subsequently leading to the collapse of the landing gear. The weather conditions at the time, described as dry but with frigid temperatures and strong winds approaching, may have played a role in the crash.
Experts lauded the aircraft’s safety features for maintaining the fuselage intact and preventing more severe damage. Safety specialist Graham Braithwaite noted that the design of aircraft interiors, including seat structures and seatbelts, aims to protect passengers in case of accidents. Flight attendants and emergency crews were commended for their swift response in evacuating passengers from the overturned plane.
As Carlson recounted, passengers collaborated effectively during the crisis, fostering a sense of unity and cooperation among those on board.
“How to help one another, how to console one another,” he said. How did the seat design help? Mr. Ronan highlighted the importance of the plane’s high-impact 16g seats, which he said were “designed to absorb a great deal of punishment.” The seats can withstand deceleration of 16 times the force of gravity and must pass rigorous testing using human dummies to model crash dynamics. The seat legs, attached to a track on the floor, must be able to pitch down 10 degrees on one side and roll 10 degrees on the other side so that they do not break, said Kevin Campbell, founder of Aviation Consulting & Engineering Solutions, who is FAA-authorized to approve seats that are required to comply with the regulations. In previous accidents, the FAA had seen seats piled up in the fronts of aircraft, with bodies still attached in many cases, Mr. Campbell said. Mr. Ronan said the regulations keep “the seat in place and bolted to the floor, so you have a higher degree of survivability in your seat itself and you have less likelihood that the seat is going to become detached, where you’re now strapped into a moving object that’s being bounced around the cabin.” The regulations also require a passenger to be able to withstand hitting their head and legs on the seat in front of them, and seats help absorb weight in their spine so that they do not break their back. Seatbelts are also less stretchy than they used to be so the restraint is more secure. “As a result of that aircrafts are much, much safer,” Mr. Campbell said, and those factors were “absolutely” at play in improving safety in this crash. “It really is remarkable that the seats did exactly what they were supposed to do, they stayed intact… the seatbelts worked just as they were supposed to, and the seats did not become detached from the floor,” Mr. Ronan said. “Think of how many head injuries we would have had, spinal injuries we would have had if the seat became detached.” Which other plane crashes have happened recently? This marks the fourth major air crash in North America in less than a month, and other recent incidents remain under investigation. All 67 people on board a passenger airplane and military helicopter died after the two aircraft collided in mid-air near Washington DC on 29 January. Seven people were killed on 1 February when a medical transportation plane carrying six people crashed in Philadelphia. Another person was killed on the ground. All 10 people were killed when a small plane came down in Alaska on 6 February. Those incidents followed another high-profile crash in South Korea in December, in which 179 people were killed. Despite these, experts say air travel remains overwhelmingly safe – and increasingly so. The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) accident dashboard says there were 257 fatal accidents globally in 2024, compared with 362 in 2014. Additional reporting by
