A Delta Air Lines flight passenger has recalled the chaotic final moments leading up to the aircraft crash-landing and flipping upside-down on the runway at Toronto Pearson International Airport on Monday.
John Nelson is one of the 80 people who miraculously survived the disaster aboard Delta Flight 4819 that left 18 people injured.
Speaking to CNN, Nelson said the runways at the Canadian airport were in a “weird condition.”
“It was a typical flight from Minneapolis to Toronto,” he told the outlet. “And we were coming in, and I did notice the winds were super gusty. The snow had kinda blown over the runways. So coming it was routine but it was noticeable that the runways were in kind of a weird condition.”
“And when we hit, it was super hard. We hit the ground and the plane went sideways and I believe we skidded on our side and flipped over on our back,” he went on.
Nelson added that the moment the plane stopped, he noticed “there was a big fireball on the left side of the plane,” before the aircraft went belly-up and its passengers were “upside down.”
“Thankfully everybody was okay. It was mass chaos…It’s an emotional rollercoaster that you go through, but it’s things you hope you don’t see again.”
“We tried to get off as quickly as possible. And shortly thereafter, there was another explosion, but luckily, the firefighters got out of there,” he added.
The flight, operated by the airline’s subsidiary Endeavor Air, took off from Minneapolis about 11:47 a.m. and crashed at about 2:15 p.m.
All 80 people — 76 passengers and four crew members — made it off the plane before it burst into flames.
A total of 18 people were left hurt, with three believed to be in a critical condition, including a child.
It was not immediately clear what caused the plane to go belly-up on the snowy tarmac in Canada’s largest city.
The Bombardier CRJ-900LR had one wing severely crumpled and the tail section was partially sheared off.
Terrifying video of the wreckage posted by Storyful shows a pair of firefighters jumping out of a side door of the aircraft and sprinting to safety just seconds before a massive fireball erupted from the fuselage.
It’s the first major incident involving a commercial passenger jet since the Jan. 29 crash of an Army Black Hawk helicopter and American Airlines flight 5342 at Ronald Reagan National Airport, in which 67 passengers and crew were killed.
