• At least 17 people were injured after a plane crash at Canada’s Toronto Pearson International Airport, according the airport’s CEO. Though the Delta Air Lines flight with 80 people on board from Minneapolis ended upside down on the runway, no one was killed in the incident, officials said.
• Pearson CEO Deborah Flint credited the “textbook response” of first responders for ensuring no live was lost. However, she said two runways would remain closed for the next few days as investigators look into the cause of the crash.
• The incident comes less than three weeks after an American Airlines plane collided midair with a US Army Black Hawk helicopter while on approach to Washington DC’s Reagan National Airport, and on the heels of deadly Jeju Air and Azerbaijan Airlines accidents in December.
REACTIONS:
“We were upside down hanging like bats,” passenger says of Toronto crash landingFrom CNN’s Taylor Romine and Amanda Jackson
Pete Koukov, a passenger on the plane that crashed at Toronto Pearson International Airport, said that he “didn’t know anything was the matter” until they hit the ground — which he described as a pretty hard landing.
“We hit the ground, and we were sideways, and then we were upside down hanging like bats,” Koukov told CNN’s Brianna Keilar.
Koukov said he was able to unbuckle and push himself to the ground, and then walk out of the plane, but some others needed help getting down from their seats.
“Just feeling lucky and happy I got to give the person I didn’t know sitting next to me a big hug, that we were OK, and see my friends who are here to pick me up from the airport and give them a big hug,” he said.
Runways at Toronto Pearson will be closed while officials investigate crash, airport CEO saysFrom CNN’s Elise Hammond
Two runways at Toronto Pearson International Airport will remain closed while officials investigate today’s crash, the CEO of the airport said Monday.
When the crash happened, the airport “immediately halted further arrivals and departures on our remaining three runways. Those have since been reopened, as of around 5 p.m. local time, Deborah Flint said.
The remaining two runways will stay closed while an investigation takes place for the “rest of tonight and into the next several days,” Flint said.
Runway closures can impact the flow of traffic at the airport and sometimes lead to delays, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. For example, while a runway was closed at Reagan National Airport in Washington, DC, last month following a fatal midair collision, the FAA limited the number of arrivals, upping the average delay time from 40 minutes to 50 minutes.
This post updated with more context from CNN
Share your story or advertise with us: Whatsapp: +2347068606071 Email: info@newspotng.com
