Initial survivor reports from the Delta Air Lines plane crash in Toronto paint a picture of a sudden crash landing, followed by passengers and crew quickly mobilizing to help each other evacuate from the upside-down plane.
“You can listen to the preflight all you want, but when you’re suddenly upside down, rolled over, everything kind of goes out the door,” Pete Carlson, a survivor and trained paramedic in Toronto for a conference, told CBC News.
It was “kind of a pinch-me day” to have survived, he said. There were no fatalities among the passengers. Nineteen of the 21 people who were transported to hospitals with injuries had been released as of Tuesday morning, Delta confirmed.
Credit: Source: Screenshot/CBC News
Credit: Source: Screenshot/CBC News
First responders in Toronto were “amazing,” Carlson said, quickly separating those with signs of injury and moving them to another location for further triage.
Carlson said the trip went normally from his perspective until the landing — other than a comment earlier in the flight about “strong winds.”
“It was just a very forceful event where all of a sudden everything just kind of went sideways. And then, next thing I know is, kind of a blink, and I’m upside down, still strapped in.”
“We were upside down, hanging like bats,” Peter Koukov, another survivor, told CNN.
Toronto Airport Fire Chief Todd Aitken said Monday evening the runway was dry and there were no crosswind conditions at the time of the incident, but he declined to comment further on the investigation.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada is in charge, with help from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board. Federal Aviation Administration investigators also deployed to Toronto, said Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.
John Nelson, another crash survivor, told CNN that they landed suddenly with a “giant pop.”
“It was mass chaos. I was upside down. The lady next to me was upside down. We let ourselves go and hit the ceiling, which was a surreal feeling. And everybody was like, ‘Get out, get out, get out!’”
The “absolute initial feeling” was “need to get out of this,” Carlson said.
As he took off his seat belt, “I crashed down onto the ceiling, which had become the floor because we were upside down.”
Credit: TNS
Credit: TNS
Soon, they could smell gas, Carlson said. (In fact, his CBC interviewer on Monday night pointed out he still smelled of gas.)
Carlson told CBC he was struck by how everyone on the plane quickly mobilized to help each other out.
“What I saw was everyone on that plane suddenly became very close in terms of how to help one another, how to console one another, and … that was powerful,” he said.
“I think, the most powerful part of today was just people. No countries, no nothing. Just people looking after each other.”
He said he didn’t even notice a wing was missing until after they’d all evacuated.
Video posted on social media by a passenger as they exited showed an Endeavor Air flight attendant quickly directing passengers off the plane: “Drop everything, drop it! Come on!” she says.
The names of the four crew members have not been released. Endeavor, which was operating the Delta flight, is a subsidiary of Delta and one of its key providers of regional jet service.
Endeavor’s roughly 1,500 pilots and 1,700 flight attendants are unionized, unlike the rest of Delta. The Association of Flight Attendants, which represents Endeavor, wrote to its members Monday, urging them not to speak to media — and to take care of themselves.
“Please do not speculate on this incident as everyone works to gather information and support those involved. The pictures and videos of this incident are intense and may cause trigger reactions for crews across the industry and our families. Please look out for each other.”
Delta opened an inquiry center and emergency phone lines to help crash survivors and their families. Members of Endeavor Air leadership were also on site to “ensure full cooperation with investigators.”
“Our most pressing priority remains taking care of all customers and Endeavor crew members who were involved,” Delta CEO Ed Bastian said in a statement.
“We’ll do everything we can to support them and their families in the days ahead, and I know the hearts, thoughts and prayers of the entire Delta community are with them.”
After canceling the remainder of its Toronto schedule Monday, Delta said Tuesday’s schedule was unaffected.
Editor’s note: This story was updated Tuesday morning with the latest details about injured passengers.
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