Investigators say a Delta jet descended too quickly before Toronto crash last month

The Delta Air Lines regional jet that crash-landed and flipped over at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport last month was descending too fast, according to Canadian investigators.

In releasing its preliminary report on the February 17th crash Thursday, Canada’s Transportation Safety Board noted that in the seconds before touching down, the CRJ 900 was descending at a rate of more than 1,100 feet per minute, which is nearly twice as fast as it should’ve been descending.

All 80 people on board the plane survived the crash, even though it flipped over and caught fire as it slid down the snowy runway. Twenty-one people were injured, two of them seriously.

The flight, operated by Endeavor Air under the Delta Connection brand name, had taken off from the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport at 11:47 a.m. CT with 76 passengers and four flight crew members on board. “The flight proceeded uneventfully” towards Toronto, according to the TSB.

In the final seconds before touching down at Toronto’s Pearson Airport at 2:12 p.m. ET in strong, gusty winds, the TSB report shows that the plane was descending at a rate of more than 1,100 feet per minute. The report notes the aircraft’s operating manual states that a hard landing is defined as “[a] landing at a vertical descent rate greater than 600 ft/min.”

In addition, the plane was banking at an angle of 7.1° to the right, and the pitch attitude was 1° nose up.

The TSB report says that as the plane touched down, the right landing gear fractured and retracted. The right wing then scraped the ground and broke off at the fuselage, releasing a cloud of jet fuel that caught fire as the airplane overturned and moved down the runway.

The TSB of Canada’s report does not explain why the plane was descending faster than it should have, nor what role the strong winds may have had in the crash. Much of the information in the preliminary report comes from the aircraft’s flight data recorder. No information from the cockpit voice recorder was released.

“We remain fully engaged as participants in the investigation led by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada,” Delta said in a statement to NPR. “Out of respect for the integrity of this work that will continue through their final report, Endeavor Air and Delta will refrain from comment.”

The final investigative report is expected in about a year.

 

A New Orleans restaurant owner’s Facebook was hacked. It put her business in jeopardy

“Swamp chic” is how Hillary Hanning describes The Little House, the neighborhood bar she owns on New Orleans’ West Bank. It’s the kind of place where a customer can sip […]

To get from experience to emotion, the brain hits ‘sustain’

A study of mice and people looks at how the brain takes an experience, like being cut off in traffic, and responds with an emotion, like road rage.

COMIC: Don’t panic! 6 strategies to keep you calm in a crisis

In dire situations, stress can make us panic and impair our ability to make lifesaving decisions. Emergency response professionals share the tactics they use to stay cool and collected on the job.

Darlings on the split screen: ‘Pavements’ explodes the music movie

Movies about musicians love to hit the same melodramatic beats about fame and genius. Important but not quite famous, the '90s indie band Pavement is the exception that unbalances the formula.

Why the U.K. prime minister is calling for a bigger military to face Russia

Key NATO members are upping their defense posture in response to threats from Russia. Experts say the Trump administration's confrontational approach to the alliance is a factor as well.

How DOGE’s push to amass data could hurt the reliability of future U.S. statistics

DOGE's murky push to amass data at federal agencies could hurt the U.S. government's ability to produce reliable census results, economic indicators and other statistics in the future, experts warn.

More Front Page Coverage