Delta plane passengers describe crash-landing in Toronto, flipping upside down: "Everything just kind of went sideways"
Passengers are starting to share their stories of surviving a chilling crash-landing Monday at Toronto Pearson International Airport, where a Delta plane on a flight from Minneapolis caught fire and flipped upside down on the runway.
There were 80 people on board Flight 4819 — 76 passengers and four crew members — all of whom survived. Authorities said 21 people were injured. Two of the injured passengers, a 40-year-old woman and 60-year-old man, were initially said to be critically hurt and were airlifted to a hospital, while the others' injuries were considered mild to moderate, according to a regional paramedics service that responded to the scene. Delta said two people remained hospitalized Tuesday, CBS News Minnesota reported.
One of the passengers speaking out about his experience is Pete Carlson, who boarded the plane Monday morning at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport to attend a paramedics conference in Canada.
In an interview with Canadian broadcaster CBC News, Carlson recalled the sounds of "cement and metal" and the scent of gasoline as the plane skidded down the icy runway in Toronto, losing both wings and its tail and turning over completely so its wheels faced the sky.
"As we made our descent and made touchdown, it was just a very forceful event, where all of a sudden everything just kind of went sideways," Carlson told CBC News. "And then, next thing I know, it was kind of a blink and I'm upside down, still strapped in."
Carlson had fastened his seatbelt, as instructed, prior to landing. When he unlatched the belt to evacuate the plane, he said he "crashed down onto the ceiling, which had become the floor."
Emergency workers at the airport were able to reach the site of the crash "within minutes," said Deborah Flint, president and CEO of Toronto Pearson International Airport, at a news conference Monday night. They quickly helped evacuate everyone on board. Flint said 22 of the passengers were Canadian and the rest were multinational, but did not provide details on how many were American or other nationalities.
"The most powerful part of today was, there was just people. No countries, no nothing," Carlson said. "There was just people together helping each other."
Matt Cunningham, a father who was also on the flight, told "CBS Mornings" he texted his family once the plane had stopped moving. The message read: "Plane crash, please pray." About 15 minutes went by before Cunningham was able to send a second message, which included pictures of the overturned aircraft that he took from outside.
"Talking to my dad today, he said those 15 minutes from the time he got that text until he until he got the next one with some photos that I took away from the plane, were 15 tough minutes," Cunningham said. He recalled the flood of emotions that washed over him when he heard his 17-year-old daughter's voice on the phone.
"I lost it," he said.
Cunningham told CBS News Minnesota he was sitting in a window seat about eight rows behind the exit doors at the front end of the plane. He remembered the passenger seated beside him helping Cunningham unfasten his seatbelt while upside down, and subsequently falling into the overhead luggage compartments that were then beneath them.
"There was some shouting back and forth, 'Is somebody opening the doors? We need to get off this plane,'" he said, recounting the commotion as people scrambled to get out. "The smell of jet fuel became very strong. We could see jet fuel going over the windows, pooling up. Seeing the videos today of the fireball we landed in, it just seems inconceivable that we weren't on fire."
Another passenger, John Nelson, captured video of the plane, charred and overturned, as people climbed out of it into the freezing cold.
Nelson described the plane making a hard landing before screeching over the pavement on its side and ultimately flipping onto its back, CBS News Minnesota reported.
"There was, like, a big fireball outside the left side of the plane and when we got finished we were upside down, everybody else was there as well," Nelson said. "We tried to get out of there as quickly as possible."
Several additional videos emerged online as passengers began to film the evacuation. In one video shared on Snapchat, passenger Ashley Zook appeared to dangle upside down from her seat inside the plane with her seatbelt fastened, AFP reported. The crash seemed to have knocked out the lights inside the plane, and it was dark.
That same social media video showed harsh winds whipping past Zook after she exited the plane.
"I was just in a plane crash, oh my god," she said in the video.
Another passenger, skier and sports influencer Pete Koukov, shared another video of the crash-landing on Instagram. A flight attendant wearing an Endeavor Air uniform is seen helping people evacuate the plane one by one through an emergency exit door, which Koukov climbed through himself. Endeavor Air is a subsidiary of Delta Air Lines headquartered in Minneapolis.
The flight attendant can be heard directing passengers to "drop everything" and urging them to "come on."
"Holy f***!" Koukov repeatedly exclaims in the recording after getting of the plane. His Instagram post includes the message: "Being alive feels pretty cool today."
Koukov later told CNN that "we were upside down hanging like bats" inside the plane before evacuating. He said he "didn't know anything was the matter" until the plane hit the ground.
The crash is under investigation by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, which is leading the probe. On Tuesday the agency confirmed the aircraft's black boxes had been recovered from the wreckage. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration said they would send investigators as well.
Meteorologists said there was blowing snow in Toronto when the crash happened, and visibility was down to 6 miles. Winds were gusting up to 37 mph and temperatures were well below freezing, at 17 degrees Fahrenheit.
But Toronto Pearson International Airport Fire Chief Todd Aitken said Monday night that the runway was dry at the time of the crash, and there were no crosswind conditions. Flint said two runways at the Toronto airport would remain closed for at least part of Tuesday as the investigation continued.
