The TSB released a preliminary report about Delta Endeavor Air CRJ-900 aircraft struck the runway while landing at at Toronto Airport, and came to rest upside down.
A landing gear support broke as a Delta Air Lines regional jet was landing before it flipped upside down, leaving passengers “hanging like bats” at Toronto Pearson International in February, according to a preliminary report from Canada’s Transportation Safety Board.
On February 17, the CRJ-900, operated by Endeavor Airlines as Delta Connection Flight 4819 from Minneapolis to Toronto, landed in a fiery crash that ripped off a wing and rolled the plane upside down.
All 80 passengers and crew made it out alive. Twenty-one were injured, including two seriously.
On touchdown, investigators determined the side-stay attached to the aircraft’s right main landing gear fractured, the gear retracted, and the right wing broke between the landing gear and fuselage, which is the central part of the plane.
When the wing detached, 6,000 pounds of jet fuel onboard sprayed out leading to a fire and explosion.
The cockpit door was jammed shut, so the pilots had to climb out of an emergency hatch located on the ceiling of the cockpit, the report says.
Thursday’s preliminary report does not identify what caused the crash or the broken landing gear. An official determination on probable cause could take up to 600 days.
