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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Delta Plane Flips On Landing At Toronto Airport; FAA And NTSB To Be Involved In The Investigation; Delta Plane Flips Upside Down At Toronto Airport; U.S. & Russian Officials To Meet Without Ukraine In Saudi Arabia; Four Top Officials Resign From Mayor Adams' Office. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired February 17, 2025 - 17:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[16:59:47]

PHIL MATINGLY, CNN HOST: It's the top of the hour and we are staying on top of that breaking news. Take a look at this incredible video. That is a Delta plane flipped over now upside down on a runway. Now this happened at Toronto's Pearson Airport. Now within the last hour we got audio of the air traffic control reacting to this crash.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNKNOWN: Where's the crash?

UNKNOWN: It's on runway 2-3, right at the threshold, right at this intersection there, 2-3 and 15 left.

UNKNOWN: LifeFlight 1, Medevac just so you are aware, there's people outside walking around the aircraft there.

UNKNOWN: Yeah, we've got it. The aircraft is upside down and burning.

(END AUDIOO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Here's what we know at this moment. All passengers have been accounted for. At least 15 are injured. At least two people have critical injuries. Now, you can see the passengers here walking off the plane, one of them capturing this incredible moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNKNOWN: We're in Toronto. We just landed. Our plane crashed. It's upside down. Fire department is on site. Upside down. Everybody, most people appear to be okay. We're all getting off.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: CNN aviation correspondent Pete Muntean is covering every new development of this breaking story. CNN's Richard Quest, who's covered the aviation industry for decades, is also standing by. Pete, I want to start with you. You have such a methodical process on how you report in situations like this. What's happening right now?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Let's walk through all of the images here because we are seeing now the response there at Toronto Pearson International Airport. A fire truck still on the scene there of a very snowy runway, which will no doubt be part of this investigation as investigators try and figure out all of the environmental factors here that what went into this crash, what looked like a relatively normal approach on the flight tracking data that we've been able to see, but somehow Delta Flight 4819, the CRJ-900 ended upside down and on fire.

That is the thick black smoke that we saw pouring out of the airplane and we saw in the following videos posted from the crash response of the foam truck that sprays fire retardant foam on the fuselage of the airplane and you can see the emergency exits open. That is the R1 door at the very front of the airplane. That's a galley door, not typically used for folks to go in and out of. That's on the left side and you can see one of the mid-overwing exits, the emergency exits open and folks streaming out of the airplane into the biting cold, about 18 degrees Fahrenheit there in Toronto Pearson International Airport.

We know that this is a pretty big international response now. Not only is the Federal Aviation Administration involved, also the National Transportation Safety Board here in the United States sending a team to look into this. Remember this was a flight operated at a Minneapolis-St. Paul airport. So this is a U.S. flag flight with an American registration. So the U.S. will be involved in this investigation being led by Canada's Transport Safety Board.

They are leading this investigation to figure out all of the parts and pieces as to how this airplane ended up on the top of its roof with the roof against the ground there at Toronto Pearson International Airport. No doubt the wind will be a factor in this investigation. We know it was a pretty good crosswind as this flight came in to land on runway 23 that's facing to the southwest with the wind reported 27 gusting 35 knots straight out of the west. So a pretty good 40 degree angle there to the crosswind.

Pilots typically either crab into the wind, point the nose of the airplane into the wind to get the airplane tracking straight down the runway and following the path, the localizer path down the runway or they will essentially put one wing down into the wind to try and keep the airplane from drifting laterally left and right. We know 80 people were on board this flight according to Delta Airlines. The typical seating configuration of a CRJ-900 like this is with 76 passengers. Seventy-six passengers came in, 76 passengers came out. A full flight with everybody accounted for.

Of course, our thoughts are with those who are critically injured. That is a big question now. And many people walking away with their -- all people really, walking away with their lives here, juxtaposed to just 19 days ago when we were reporting on the mid-air collision over the Potomac River, where all 67 people on board did not survive. Really a miraculous end here and a very happy ending to what has been an incredible streak for aviation crashes and disasters between commercial flights and private jet flights that we have seen with rapidity over and over again in 2025.

[17:05:01] We also know the Trump administration is responding here. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says the Federal Aviation Administration is also sending investigators to the scene. Phil.

MATTINGLY: Rich Request, you've covered the airline industry. You have so much experience in this space. What stands out to you when you watch this play out?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN BUSINESS ANCHORE, QUEST MEANS BUSINESS: If you look at the extraordinary pictures, the unusual nature, what stands out from me is that this will have been an incident that happened with incredible force, speed and suddenly. This wasn't one of these things where anybody really had time to prepare for the idea that the plane was going to flip over, lose its wings, stabilizers and tail, and then everybody would have to take the seatbelts off upside down.

No, there would have been none of that. It would have been the urgency. It would have been the, yes, the panic at one sense of the passengers, but the meticulous way in which the crew have evacuated the aircraft with years, decades of training coming into play that gets the fire brigade on the scene very quickly. We know there was a fire of sorts, we've seen the smoke, we know that the plane was in critical condition having lost its wings.

The potential to have lost for loss of life was enormous in this circumstance. Absolutely enormous. And the fact that you end up with people walking away, three critical injuries, but non-life threatening, that I think is the marvel of today's aviation. From the safety procedures, from the standards of the G-forces, for the seats that are put into place. Overall, Phil, what I take away from this morning is that this was aviation at its very best.

MATTINGLY: Such an important point, Richard, a point Pete's been making as well. We can't forget about that as we kind of figure out what actually happened here. Pete Muntean, Richard Quest, invaluable experience in reporting as always. The CEO of Delta, Ed Bashan, just released a statement about this crash. It reads, quote, "The hearts of the entire global Delta family are with those affected by today's incident at Toronto Pearson International Airport. I want to express my thanks to the many Delta and Endeavor team members and the first responders on site. We are working to confirm the details and we'll share the most current information on news.delta.com as soon as it becomes available. In the meantime, please take care and stay safe."

I want to bring in CNN Safety Analyst and former FAA Safety Inspector David Soucie. David, to the point that Richard Quest was just making. It's almost miraculous, and based on the team that was in the plane, the safety elements that are on the plane, the fact that at this point in time there's no loss of life, there are fifteen injuries, two that are critical. Are you surprised by that?

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: You know, everybody keeps saying it's miraculous that there are no fatalities, but I've had a little bit of a different perspective in that I was present at the 1987 crash of a DC-9 in Denver, which was on its way out, and it ended up crashing on the runway and flipping over upside down. And at that time, these seats, these 16G seats, were not on that DC-9, nor were the breakaway wings. It wasn't designed to break away, so the wings were still on the aircraft at the time this aircraft was upside down with passengers in it.

So at that time, there were 25 fatalities that we were not able to get out of the aircraft in time. And the weight of those wings were continuing to crush down on people still in the airplane that couldn't get out. So to be able to see this now, basically a recurrent, the same number of people, almost 80 people, to be able to get out of there without any injuries is pure testament to all of the work that the NTSB and the FAA and all the regulators and everyone involved with the design of the aircraft has made this a survivable accident.

I saw it happen in '87 and it was not survivable by 25 people. I see it today and it is survivable. So, is it a miracle or is it just good, smart, hard work by the regulators and by the NTSB in trying to get aircraft to be safer and safer and safer continuously?

MATTINGLY: I want to expand on this because there are fascinating elements and obviously your personal experience is extraordinarily helpful in explaining them because when I first saw these photos beyond the bizarre a plane as upside down moment, it was -- there are no wings. And then you saw the video that we showed. If we could pull it back up again with the smoke, just the billowing black smoke that signified fire. I thought this looks terrible in every single way.

[17:09:58]

And on some level, you're saying this is exactly how it was supposed to happen based on regulatory changes and structural changes that have occurred over the course of the last couple of decades.

SOUCIE: Yeah, it sounds like a strange perspective, but really what I'm talking about is the capability of mitigating loss of life. That's what the purpose of the FAA is and the purpose of the NTSB and our exit investigations is to save lives, and that's what's happened here. So when I see this -- now you brought up the smoke and that does raise some very big concerns for me about how this happened.

Initially I thought, as most of us did, there was a crosswind, but this aircraft is certified. It has demonstrated its ability to land in direct crosswinds at 35 knots. So unless some surprise gust came up, which is possible, but when you look at that smoke, you see that the smoke wasn't there until it was on the runway. The runway -- the smoke started at the impact point from what I can tell. And so that, I'd start looking at a couple of things.

Number one is I would look at the landing gear because if the landing gear is still in the wheel wells, if it's still on the aircraft and it wasn't out and got ripped off when it turned upside down or sideways, that tells me that landing gear may not have been fully extended. So, as an investigator, that would be one of the first things I look at is when did that smoke start?

Did it start on impact, which would tell me that the if the impact was so significant that it either collapse the landing gear or cause the engines to come down which would have started a fire in that connecting point for the engines and caused that large amount of smoke that came out? That doesn't just happen from landing and getting sideways on the runway. So there's a lot of investigation needs to be done. I'm not saying that is what happened, but as an investigator and experienced investigator, those are a few of the things that I would look at first, Matt.

MATTINGLY: Can I take a step back just to the point that Pete was making that, you know, given this incident, multiple smaller incidents, we've heard about in just the past few weeks. Obviously, a much larger incident here in the U.S., the tragic deadly DCA crash, there's been firing of personnel at the FAA, your point about regulations and the effectiveness of kind of the government action here. What's your sense of this moment for the airline industry for flights and flight safety?

SOUCIE: Well, what I want to caution about, Matt, is that when we look at a short period of time in aviation, you have to understand that the litmus test here is a personal decision on your part. Do you feel safe? Now, when you're trying to make that decision, do I feel safe flying? And I do, very much so. There's no trend. There's nothing that ties these accidents together. So using critical thinking, you can say for yourself, do all of these things indicate some kind of trend in aircraft accidents?

And to me, as an experienced investigator and being involved in aviation as a mechanic and as a safety inspector for the FAA, I'm perfect -- I feel perfectly safe doing this. I don't see anything tying these together that says, oh, the FAA is bad or the system is a problem. There are incidents that are a problem. And so it's real hard to, as a flying person, and I get e-mails all the time and calls from people that say, it's not safe, it can't be right now, even from pilots saying, what's going on with aviation right now?

And to me, I still feel safe. You have to look at the thousands and tens of thousands of flights that happen every single day without incident and balance that. But again, it comes down to your personal decision. If you don't feel safe flying, do not feel, do not fly. But if you do feel safe and you feel like you're ready to go, take trust and take faith in the fact that there are thousands of people like myself that dedicated their life, their entire life to making things safer and making it more survivable when there is a critical failure of this kind.

MATTINGLY: Yeah. Extremely important to point out there is no connective tissue between kind of all of these various incidents --

SOUCIE: No.

MATTINGLY: -- at least that I have seen at this point. David Soucie, always appreciate your time sir. Thanks so much.

SOUCIE: Thank you, Matt.

MATTINGLY: Well, new information on the Delta plane crash, including details on the status of those injured. We're back live with new details next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:15:00]

MATTINGLY: We are staying on top of the breaking news. A Delta plane crashing in Canada, flipping upside down onto the runway. Reports say at least 15 people are injured, two of them critically. I want to bring back in CNN's Paula Newton, who's typically based in Canada. Paula, what more are we learning about the people on board here?

PAULA NEWTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Delta now confirming that there were 80 people on board, four crew members and 76 passengers, and that would make this a full flight as it touched down there in Toronto. And also, I want to reiterate that the NTSB is on their way to the location in order to begin this investigation. The lead though, of course, on the investigation will be the Transportation Safety Board of Canada. Anita Anan, the Transport Minister in Canada, confirming that as well, those investigators are on the way to the scene here.

As I've been saying, Phil, I was at the airport a little over an hour before this plane landed. There were fierce winds, a lot of blowing snow, crews working to really try and clear those runways. But again, we have no idea if that led to this incident or not. I do want to point out, Phil, that again, about 20 years ago in 2005, an Air France plane hit the runway here, overshot it. In fact, it landed in a ravine; 297 people there came out. There were multiple injuries, none of them serious.

And again, lessons learned from that crash, Phil, indicate that at this point in time, if the weather was indicative and they didn't feel that they could land, given the recommendations that were set out about 15 years ago now, the pilots would have been made aware exactly the kind of wind conditions they were going into and the kind of crosswinds they were going into.

[17:19:5]

Again, obviously more questions than answers on what was really a terrible day at Pearson Airport given the winds.

MATTINGLY: Yeah, keep us posted, Paula, as we hear more from your reporting. Appreciate your time. Let's get further analysis now from former FAA control tower operator Michael McCormick. Michael, based on your experience, what was your reaction when you initially saw these images of the plane upside down?

MICHAEL MCCORMICK, RETIRED VP, FAA AIR TRAFFIC ORGANIZATION: Like many, when you look at those videos and pictures, when you see the aircraft upside down, it's a little bit disconcerting. But at the same time, the engineering design driven by regulation has created an airframe that's able to withstand an accident of this type, and we had 80 people who survived this crash. That is a result of years of dedicated work by many aviation professionals to improve the safety of flight. MATTINGLY: It's a critically important point. We've had a number of our reporters bring up that same exact point. As this investigation starts to move forward, obviously in the earliest of early stages right now, what do you think investigators will be asking or talking to the tower operators who are there at the time of the crash about?

MCCORMICK: Primarily they will be interviewing the tower team at Toronto Pearson International Airport. You get an idea of what were the winds like at the time, what was the weather like, what was the visibility like. Were there any other problems with any other previous arrivals to that runway?

That is the longest runway at Toronto Airport. And where this accident occurred and the aircraft came to stop, it was only a very short way down the runway. So it didn't have much of a time to roll out or reduce speed. So that is also going to be a factor into this. What did you see? How did it occur?

MATTINGLY: Can you take people into, you know, for people who don't understand how this process works, the communication between tower operators and pilots when there are weather issues, when it's windy like this, or there are snowy conditions? How does it actually work?

MCCORMICK: One of the tools available to air traffic controllers and shared with the pilots of aircraft landing is what's known as low- level wind shear alerting system. And that is the constant monitoring of multiple locations around the airport of the wind speed and direction and that will alert whenever there is a difference in the wind speed. So that's provided directly to the pilot so they have a warning of what actually they may encounter upon their arrival.

MATTINGLY: It's really valuable context as we continue to try and put the pieces together. Investigators doing the same thing. Michael McCormick, really appreciate your time, sir. Thanks so much.

MCCORMICK: Thank you.

MATTINGLY: Brand new images of a Delta plane crash just into CNN showing flames engulfing the aircraft. A live report next.

(COMMRECIAL BREAK)

[17:25:00]

MATTINGLY: We're staying on the breaking news and we're getting new images showing a Delta plane that crashed in Canada, flipped upside down onto the runway. We do know there are at least 15 people injured, some of them critically. Pete Muntean is back with us now. Pete, we have new images of the plane. Walk us through what they tell us about the fire here.

MUNTEAN: Let's go through just the latest news. And we just got this from Toronto Pearson International Airport. Departures have resumed there. The airport has been closed since this crash about 2:15 Eastern Standard Time. So now, departures resumed at 5:00 p.m. and we know that the airport says it's supporting the families of passengers at arrivals. All 76 passengers and four crew from Delta 4819, according to this new statement and post on X from Toronto Pearson International Airport, are okay and accounted for, although we know that some are in critical condition.

These new images really show the incredible response here by the airport rescue and firefighting crews and the crash truck that came to the scene nearly right away, it looks like. Incredible response by them. Hats off to them. The right wing missing and you can see what looks to be some singe marks there from the right wing missing. That's where the fuel is stored. So, naturally, that's where there would be a lot of energy for a fire and a lot of the black smoke that we saw pouring out of the plane and some of the other images.

You can see also the doors that were used here for the evacuation. This plane is on its roof, it's inverted and you can see from this image the right side of the plane, meaning that it's possible that the doors on the left side of the plane were blocked just given the angle of the airplane. It looks like it sort of rotated a bit that direction. So the passengers and crew in evacuating had to use what's called the R1 door.

That's a galley door at the front of the airplane just behind the bulkhead between the cockpit and the passenger cabin, the start of the first class cabin. That's where seats are one by two in first class, then two by two. and the rest of the airplane. And then the mid-wing, sorry, the mid-fuselage over-wing exit, the emergency exit there, and you can see folks streaming out as the airport rescue and firefighting crews are on the scene, clearly putting out, which was a very thick black smoke fire.

[17:29:57]

So, a lot of really good work here, not only by the rescue response, but also by the flight crew and also the passengers who were essentially thrust out onto this, looks like a snow-covered runway and blowing snow there with the winds gusting to about 35 knots or 40 miles per hour and biting cold, about 18 degrees Fahrenheit, not factoring in the wind chill.

So this was pretty harrowing and pretty incredible that all passengers are -- are accounted for with their lives. Of course, some in critical condition right now, which is a pretty big caveat, but pretty amazing that everyone was essentially able to walk away from this very terrible crash.

And the big thing now for investigators to figure out is how this airplane ended up rolled over on its back. A lot of questions now about the approach and the wind, what took place here and what were the conditions of the runway at the time? Were they slick or -- and snow-covered, ice-covered? Or were they normal? And this is something that pilots typically look at, the breaking action reports, to give a bit of an indication of how smooth the landing can be once the wheels meet the pavement or lack thereof if it's covered by snow and ice. That can really add to the risk factors here.

And investigators will no doubt be looking into the environmental factors first, an international investigation led by the Canadian Transport Safety Board, but also being aided by the National Transportation Safety Board in the United States and also the Federal Aviation Administration here in the United States.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN HOST: Hey, Pete, while I have you, our weather team has been doing really excellent work trying to piece together how this happened from their side of things. We have -- we have a new graphic that shows kind of wind speed on location, where this was happening, when the landing took place, and then the eventual kind of inversion of the plane. I don't get -- I think if you've got return, you can see it.

MUNTEAN: Yes.

MATTINGLY: I'm trying to piece together kind of what we're actually looking at here. You've been talking about these very elements over the course of the last couple of hours. What do you see?

MUNTEAN: You -- you're seeing the runway there that the Flight 4819 landed on to the southwest, Runway 23. The wind is coming from the west, Runway 2 -- out of the -- out of the west. We should go back to the graphic there, meaning that there was a pretty decent crosswind. You're not taking all of the wind at this angle. This is about a 40 degree, what's called a crosswind component. It is challenging for pilots, although not out of the realm of their capability, especially professional pilots in a gust of 35 knots or 40 miles per hour.

It's tough. It's maybe not the smoothest, but it's doable. Maybe a little tricky, but definitely within the re -- realm of capability. You would usually have on the approach coming into the runway the right wing down or crabbing into the wind by essentially yawing the airplane or moving the nose into the wind so the plane tracks straight down the runway. So this really shows that there was a pretty interesting wind, to put -- to put it mildly. It may have been a contributing factor here. But the big caveat, it's so, so soon in this investigation.

We're only three hours since this happened, and -- and it's way too soon to speculate, although it's pretty safe to say that investigators will be looking at the wind as a potential factor in this crash, although just to remind you, this is not something that -- that you should be totally terrified about as a commercial airline passenger. Crosswinds happen all the time.

MATTINGLY: Yes, important point. Appreciate the agility, as always, with the graphics. Pete Muntean, you're the best, my friend.

[17:33:31]

When we come back, we'll speak with a commercial airline pilot about this crash. We're back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTINGLY: We are back with the breaking news in our World Lead. Delta Airlines confirming that 80 people were on board the plane that crashed at the Toronto Airport, 76 passengers and four crew. We're still waiting to learn more about how this plane flipped upside down.

To try and figure that out, we're going to talk to Joshua Schirard. He's back with us. He's a commercial airline pilot and director of Byrna Technologies and former senior NTSB investigator, Greg Feith. Joshua, last hour, we were talking about the flight crew here. Talk more about their job when this flight is an emergency role, their role, and the fact that 80 people were able to come off of this plane.

JOSHUA SCHIRARD, COMMERCIAL AIRLINE PILOT: Yes, absolutely. So when we think about cabin attendants and flight attendants, most -- most of the American public think about somebody that serves you drinks and snacks. But these people go through weeks and weeks and weeks of intense training.

And I can guarantee you, it's not about how to take your order. That training is all centered around emergency response to all kinds of emergencies, including ones like this one, where we have a plane that's in a -- a configuration that -- that is obviously not normal and not standard. So they are the linchpin. They are the pivotal piece in getting passengers evacuated efficiently and safety -- and safely.

In the U.S., we're looking for a 90-second evacuation. And that's with not even all the exits working. So that's what they're striving toward. And while that takes a lot of compliance from the passengers, that is driven by that crew onboard that aircraft. Then you have the pilots, the flight crew as well, that's coordinating response from emergency services as well as the cabin crew getting everyone out.

It is a orchestra of coordination to make the evacuation happen like we see here. And I think this is a testament to that training and that professionalism of that entire crew.

MATTINGLY: Great point. They can't get lost today. Greg, I want to ask for context. I think people trying to picture how this actually happened here. We have an image of the actual plane that flipped today. You can tell by the tail number. This photo of the aircraft was taken in 2022. That's the -- what it was prior to landing. And we've seen with the -- the wings sheared off, upside down, inverted, as Pete Muntean has been laying out for us. What kind of questions would you be asking here as this investigation really kicks into high gear?

GREG FEITH, FMR. SR. NTSB INVESTIGATOR: Well, I think Joshua touched on a little bit, you know, in an earlier segment with regard to crew operation. From the data that I've seen in its early data, the airplane looks pretty stable on the approach coming down. It comes over the runway at about 36-feet over the numbers, which is normal 500 plus feet per minute. So that looks to be normal and stabilized. That could change, of course.

[17:40:12]

But the question is, what happened once that aircraft got close to the ground or even on the ground? Because if you had a firm landing and the aircraft, unfortunately, bounced or you -- you planted the airplane on the runway, and the runway was slick with a bit of a crosswind. In this case, there's some varying reports of 27 to 30, 35, 40 knots.

That could affect directional control. Once that aircraft leaves the paved surface of the runway, now you don't know what's going to happen. The crew isn't really in control. And if they -- they drag the wingtip, it breaks one wing, the aircraft starts to roll, it'll shed the wing.

The good thing about this is that the wings and the portion of the tail that did separate, they absorbed all of those high impact energy forces that kept the tube, the fuselage tube intact, which really enhanced survivability in this particular accident.

MATTINGLY: You know, Joshua, kind of to what Greg was laying out there, and this will sound probably a little bit simplistic to -- to an actual commercial pilot, but a plane typically before takeoff, it's de-iced, right? It -- it takes off kind of snow -- snowy conditions. What about landing? When you're landing on a runway, when it's snow and it's windy, when there's ice, what's the process there for a pilot?

SCHIRARD: So it's really getting a lot of information before that approach begins. And unfortunately, a lot of that information is colloquial. It's coming from other pilots that have either taken off or landed on that runway. We talked about breaking action reports, which in this case is probably going to be one of the most critical pieces of information that those pilots can get. It generally comes across as three numbers, 555 or maybe 353, which coordinate to a scale between zero and six, six being the best, zero being the worst. And the -- the -- the thirds of the runway, first third, second third, and last third. The problem is that's very anecdotal.

So it's really just garnered off of what other pilots have occurred or have come across in that part of the runway. So, you know, they're trying to get that data to see if -- if the -- their breaking action is going to be good, if they're going to be sliding, to -- to see exactly how to -- to make that approach most successful.

MATTINGLY: Joshua Schirard, Greg Feith, really appreciate your expertise. Thank you, my friends.

Well, there is new information about the difficulty the plane encountered just before it crashed. We're back live in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:46:42]

MATTINGLY: Well, if you're just joining us, we're following the breaking news. A Delta flight upside down, flipping while coming in for landing at Toronto's Pearson International Airport, 15 people injured, including a young child. Thankfully, no reported fatalities.

I want to bring in CNN's Tom Foreman. Tom, strong winds, they've been impacting Toronto and its airport all day long. How challenging is it to land in this type of scenario? TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, pilots will tell you it can be quite challenging. Look at this plane and ask yourself, how did it wind up this way when it was upright? This is an overhead view of such a plane. The wings obviously docked in here.

When they're coming in, in this case, what we know is that the winds were basically coming this direction toward the plane here, edging up toward 40 miles an hour. That's not an actually true crosswind, which would actually have been coming in from right over here. But still, it does require adjustment to get in this way.

The plane needs to point into the wind as much as possible. So in a perfect scenario, what they would have done is one option would have been to sort of nose toward this wind coming in. That requires, when they hit the runway, to very quickly adjust because the landing gear isn't meant to land this way if you're going that way.

So they have to adjust quickly. The other option is they have this wing over here dropped down a good bit so the wind is pushing down on it. And then they use the controls to keep it heading straight forward.

The bottom line is you're doing a lot fast upon landing when you're dealing with winds like this. Is it beyond the range of what's safe? No, but it is challenging. And as your guest noted earlier, what happens if the plane goes off the edge of the runway? That's a whole different ball of wax.

This plane is landing at about 150 miles an hour. So think about all that kinetic energy being turned loose, as your guest Greg mentioned a short while ago. It's got to go somewhere. When you touch down, it's got to go somewhere. If you catch the wrong piece of gear in those conditions, if the wind hits just right, the results could be calamitous.

MATTINGLY: The speed with which everything happened, and yet the fact that people appear to walk out for the most part here.

FOREMAN: So many things for them to look at. And the wind may have had nothing to do with it.

MATTINGLY: Yes.

FOREMAN: But we'll find out. It's something to be looked at for sure.

MATTINGLY: Fascinating stuff as always. Tom Foreman, thank you so much.

[17:48:55]

Well, the question so many are asking, how could a large passenger jet just flip upside down? CNN is working with investigators to uncover new information. Stay with our live breaking coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) MATTINGLY: We are continuing to follow the breaking news on the Delta plane crash at the Toronto airport. But we do want to turn to another major story in our World Lead. In just a couple of hours, U.S. and Russian officials will meet in Saudi Arabia as President Trump drives a sudden push to end the war in Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Ukraine, quote, knew nothing about the talks. Let's go to CNN's Jeff Zeleny, who's with President Trump in West Palm Beach, Florida. Jeff, what are you hearing from the administration about eventually including Ukraine in these talks?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: I mean, Phil, that is the central question here. Ukraine obviously not being involved in the talks on the front end is a major signal of priority. It's a major signal of outcome as well. But the President has dispatched three of his top foreign policy officials, as you said, for meetings tomorrow in Riyadh, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, his national security advisor, as well as his Middle East envoy, meeting with their Russian counterparts. But Ukraine is not at the table.

That begs the question, is Ukraine now going to be isolated? Is Ukraine going to be essentially what to Russia has been for more than three years or so, isolated by the world community after invading Ukraine? But the President obviously wanting this meeting to be in Saudi Arabia, that is no accident. The crowned prince there has been not only hosting the meetings, they are going to play a central role here.

And the President, White House advisors tell me, would -- would like to join these talks with Vladimir Putin in the coming weeks. So that would be an extraordinarily quick development here. But again, the central question, you hit it off the -- the top here, is Ukraine going to be involved and to what degree? Security concerns, of course. There are future security concerns. There are -- there are land and a -- and a territory, so many questions here. But for now, at least, at the early meeting tomorrow, Ukraine is not there. And that speaks volumes.

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MATTINGLY: It certainly does, Jeff. Just your perspective in talking to White House officials, what is their ideal outcome out of this? Would it be for a kind of summit between Presidents Putin and Trump? Is there a peace deal that they see in the works here? What are they going for here?

ZELENY: It absolutely would be a summit. That's exactly what the President wants. I mean, it all started last week with that phone call between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. It really reopened conversations that had been frozen for three years or so. Now, the road to a peace process, obviously, at some point has to include Ukraine.

Secretary Marco Rubio has given some assurances that Ukraine will be in the middle of this. But what's happening across Europe also is so much a part of this. The summit is not happening in Geneva, in Helsinki. It is happening in Riyadh, in Saudi Arabia. That is sending the message here that Russia is playing a bigger role and Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a bystander at this point. Of course, he likely will not be at the end of this, but there is no doubt the next step after these meetings tomorrow could be a summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, and that would be extraordinary.

MATTINGLY: Yes, it's just remarkable how fast these things have turned and remarkable yet again, we saw it in the first term.

ZELENY: Right.

MATTINGLY: You covered it very closely. Mohammed bin Salman and Saudi Arabia's role and centrality in all of this will certainly be something to watch in the days and weeks ahead. Jeff Zeleny for us, West Palm Beach, thanks so much.

I want to turn to our Politics Lead now. Today, four top deputies to New York City Mayor Eric Adams resign. This after the outgoing U.S. attorney for Manhattan accused the mayor of agreeing to cooperate with President Trump's immigration plans if the Justice Department threw out his corruption case.

This follows the mass resignation of top prosecutors in New York and D.C. last week. Adams has pleaded not -- not guilty to all charges and denies any quid pro quo. I want to go to CNN's Kara Scannell. Kara, what more do we know about these resignations or expected resignations? And how's Adams handling all this?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Phil, I mean, this is the first political fallout for Adams since that decision was made by the Justice Department to file this motion to dismiss the criminal charges against him. And as you said, that resulted in the resignations of seven federal prosecutors. Now we're seeing the implications of this at City Hall, where four of his top deputies, those are half of the deputy mayors at City Hall, have resigned today.

And in part, they say one of the reasons why they're resigning, and this is a joint statement from three of them, they say it's because of the duty that they swore to New Yorkers to carry out, and that because of the events of the past week, they were issuing their resignation.

Now, it's unclear if there will be more that follows or if -- if this is where we are. But, you know, the mayor today responding to their resignation saying, I am disappointed to see them go, but given the current challenges, I understand their decision and wish them nothing but success in the future.

Now, this is coming as there are growing calls for Adams himself to resign, growing calls for Governor Kathy Hochul to remove him from office. But, so far, he is staying in this position. He is still trying to run for reelection, and he has denied participating in any quid pro quo with the Trump administration.

Of course, that was the basis for the prosecutors to resign last week, because they believe that this is part of a quid pro quo to get rid of these criminal charges, to allow Adams to carry out Trump's immigration agenda. Phil?

MATTINGLY: Yes, challenges is certainly one way to put what's going on right now. The court case itself, is it gone? There -- there's -- there's other steps here, right?

SCANNELL: Oh, yes, Phil, there's still more to come here. I mean, they filed this motion where they had to get prosecutors in Washington, D.C. to sign on to the case. Now it's before Judge Dale Ho. He is the one that's been overseeing this case.

And just today, there was a lawyer for Common Cause. It's a nonprofit group who asked the judge to appoint someone, him, to be able to argue the other side, to argue why this case should not be dismissed. You know, this is all kind of uncharted territory, but it's something that the judge could consider.

He could allow someone else to make the case against dismissing this, and then ultimately decide what he is going to do. But because this is one of these moments that is almost unprecedented, how this is going to play out remains to be seen. But the case is now before the judge, and we're waiting to hear what he's going to do next.

MATTINGLY: And it's why I'm grateful Kara Scannell is leading our coverage on these unprecedented times. Kara Scannell, thanks so much. Also in today's World Lead, Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum, threatening to sue Google over changing the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America on their maps app. Now, Sheinbaum says the company's label includes areas under Mexican and Cuban jurisdiction, and that Google lacks the actual authority to make this change.

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And back in the breaking news in Canada, we just got some brand new video. It's our first look from inside the cabin. It shows passengers getting out of the airliner after it flipped. You're going to want to watch this coming up next with Wolf Blitzer in The Situation Room. They'll have all of it and much more in the investigation, the crash in Toronto starting right now.