CANADA | Delta Plane Crashes and Overturns While Landing at Toronto Airport

[HIGHTECHDUDE]

Looks like it was flying too slow for prevailing conditions. Preliminary info...

TORONTO, (February 17, 2025) — A Delta Air Lines flight from Minneapolis crashed and overturned while landing at Toronto Pearson Airport on Monday afternoon, with photos showing the plane with its belly up on the tarmac.

A Bombardier CR900, Delta Flight 4819 crashed while landing around 2:45 p.m. local time, FAA officials said in a statement, as powerful gusts of wind and drifting snow were reported in the area.

All 80 people onboard were evacuated, F.A.A. officials said, though the full extent of injuries was still uncertain.

Nine people were injured, including one who was critically hurt but whose injuries were not life-threatening who was airlifted to a trauma center, said Lawrence Saindon, a supervisor with the Peel Regional Paramedic Services. One pediatric patient was also in critical but non-life-threatening condition.

The remaining seven who were injured were taken to hospitals with minor-to-moderate injuries.

FlightAware

[houseoftechno]

Originally Posted by HIGHTECHDUDE

Looks like it was flying too slow for prevailing conditions. Preliminary info...

Fixed.

[akham]

METAR from Toronto Pearson at the time of the incident:

CYYZ 171900Z 27028G35KT 6SM R24L/3000VP6000FT/U BLSN BKN034 M09/M14 A2993 RMK CU6 SLP149
CYYZ 171932Z 27020G32KT 6SM R24L/2600VP6000FT/D BLSN BKN030 M08/M13 A2994 RMK CU5 ACCIDENT REPORT SLP151

CYYZ is the airport code for Toronto Pearson. "171900Z" means the weather report is dated at 1900UTC on the 17th. "27028G35KT" means the wind is coming from heading 270 degrees (magnetic) at a steady speed of 28 knots with gusts to 35 knots.

The aircraft "landed" on runway 23, which has a heading of 237 degrees (magnetic). Therefore the angle between the runway and wind direction was about 30 degrees. That means that about half of the wind speed was crosswind, i.e. 14 gusting 17 knots crosswind.

AFAIK the permitted max crosswind for a CRJ (on a dry runway) is around 35-40kts. In the current conditions at CYYZ we would have to assume the runway was wet/contaminated, and I've seen max crosswind figures around 20kts in those cases (unfortunately I don't have precise or authoritative info on that yet).

It is always possible that the wind was worse than in the METAR and the runway was very slippery/iced and that may have been what led to this incident. Time will tell.

This is an (unverified, hearsay) report supposedly from a pilot who witnessed the crash:

“I just witnessed it happen. Delta CRJ struck a wing landing 23 and cartwheeled. Tail and wing separated. Bad crosswinds.”

[akham]

This is what I believe was the current AITS (Automatic Terminal Information Service - ie. key information for pilots using the airport) at the time of the incident.

CYYZ ARR ATIS D 1800Z 28028G34KT 6SM BLSN CIG BKN038 M08/M14 A2992

APCH ILS RWY 23. LDG RWY 23 DEP RWY 24R.

RSC 23 5/5/5 10 PCT COMPACTED SNOW AND 25 PCT 1/8IN DRY SNOW, 10 PCT COMPACTED SNOW AND 25 PCT 1/8IN DRY SNOW, 10 PCT COMPACTED SNOW AND 25 PCT 1/8IN DRY SNOW. 160FT WIDTH. REMAINING WIDTH 1/4IN DRY SNOW ON TOP OF COMPACTED SNOW. BLOWING SNOW. CHEMICAL RESIDUE PRESENT. AT 1750Z.

RSC 24R 6/6/6 20 PCT COMPACTED SNOW, 20 PCT COMPACTED SNOW, 20 PCT COMPACTED SNOW. 160FT WIDTH. REMAINING WIDTH 1/4IN DRY SNOW ON TOP OF COMPACTED SNOW. BLOWING SNOW. AT 17 1449Z.

ACFT RQRG ENGINE OR ICE CLRG PROCS PRIOR TO DEP MUST INFORM ATC ON CTC. ACFT MUST NTFY ATC OF ANY CHGS TO THESE RQRMTS. GOOSE AND SMALL BIRD ACTIVITY IN THE CYYZ AREA. MNT FREQ 133.1 FOR NOTAM INFO NOT AVBL BY DATA LINK.

INFORM CYYZ ATC INFO D

Runway 23 is reported to have dry/compacted snow on it, but a reasonably good runway surface condition (RSC). RSC represents the braking action on the runway and is reported for each third of the runway, 6 is best and 0 is worst. So 5/5/5 means the braking action on the runway is pretty good.

[Hogmann]

I saw a video of the landing and the plane was flown right into the runway much too hard resulting in the right wing breaking off. It looks like the pilot never attempted to arrest the descent with a round out and flare. Why he didn't attempt to land and continued to fly into the ground is a good question. But I've heard the term empty field myopia tossed around. He may have been experiencing a visual illusion that made him unable to accurately judge depth. I'm not familiar with the crj but most airliners have radar altimeters which measure the actual distance of the ground and an audible call out telling them their height above the ground when they get within a hundred feet.

Empty field myopia (Empty space myopia) - a condition in which the eyes, having nothing specific within the available visual field upon which to focus, focus automatically at a range of the order of a few metres ahead. Detection of objects outside this restricted field of view is delayed and if an object of interest does enter the restricted field of vision, the determination of its size or range would be problematic.
The list below consists of several identified conditions when the eyes often tend to turn back to their natural resting state:
...flying over snow covered or desert surfaces with predominantly featureless ground characteristics and over large bodies of water; the risk factor is especially high for low level inspection flights and military low flying assignments;

[Hogmann]

.

[akham]

FR24 have released the granular ADS-B data for this incident:

https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/w...nular_Data.csv

I'm wondering if windshear played a role. In the last 10 seconds of data (at an altitude of roughly 100ft) the descent rate of the aircraft increased from 640fpm to 1024fpm and ground speed dropped from 113kts to 103kts.

There is also a sudden roll of the aircraft, consistent with reports of a wing strike.

[akham]

Originally Posted by Hogmann

I saw a video of the landing and the plane was flown right into the runway much too hard resulting in the right wing breaking off. It looks like the pilot never attempted to arrest the descent with a round out and flare.

Have you seen the granular ADS-B data and, if so, do you still think that way?

On my reading the ADS-B data shows a stabilized approach down to about 100ft AGL at which point the aircraft plummets and rolls.

Applying occam's razor, I'm thinking windshear (a common threat).

[Hogmann]

I don't see a wing strike in the video but I do see you very hard Landing resulting in cracking of the wing spar. So it could have been an issue like I mentioned above or possibly they just ran out of energy and were unable to arrest the descent kind of like what I think happened with the Learjet in Scottsdale. Only this would have been created by strong Gusty winds as opposed to Scottsdale by a pilot on an unstable approach

[akham]

Official minute-by-minute wind measurements from Toronto Pearson for the time of incident.

Source: NavCanada (CYYZ North Field)

https://spaces.navcanada.ca/workspac...YYZ/historical