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Plane Flips Over After Crashing At Toronto Airport; Ambulance Service: At Least Three Passengers Have Critical Injuries, Including One Child; Reports: At Least 15 People Injured In Toronto Crash Landing; Reports: No Deaths In Toronto Crash, At Least 15 Hurt. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired February 17, 2025 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[16:00:30]
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.
RICHARD QUEST, CNN INTERNATIONAL HOST, "QUEST MEANS BUSINESS": Hello and a very good evening to you. I am Richard Quest.
Today, I am in Tokyo, in Japan, where the morning is just arriving and as morning arrives, we begin with the breaking news from Canada, where a Delta
Air Lines commuter jet, a Delta Air Lines connection plane has flipped upside down, I jest not, after crashing at Toronto's Pearson Airport.
The pictures that you are seeing along with myself now are somewhat unbelievable. There you have the aircraft on its back with the Fire Brigade
pouring fire retardant materials on top of it. Notice certain things.
Notice that the plane is without its wings and without its empennage. It doesn't have its tail, nor does it have the stabilizers.
The emergency teams obviously have responded. According to the airport, all the passengers and crew have been accounted for, but there are reports of
some injuries. The severity of those injuries is by no means clear.
Now, as for the history of this flight, it took off this morning from the US city of Minneapolis in Minnesota. There have been winds of more than 50
kilometers per hour on arrival on Runway 26 at Toronto Pearson.
So the conditions were far from ideal as the plane came in to land. The speculation, of course, is that in some shape or form, the plane flipped
upon its landing where there upon the wings and the other parts of the aircraft came off.
The plane landed on its roof, and the rest, as they say, is history.
CNN's Paula Newton is with me from Ottawa.
Paula, you have seen the pictures at the same time as I am. You have obviously, the ability at the moment to see more of the details that are
being reported elsewhere. What are we seeing?
PAULA NEWTON, CNN INTERNATIONAL HOST AND CORRESPONDENT: Well, I can tell you what I saw for myself, Richard.
I was on the ground at that airport a little bit more than three hours ago. We were delayed in taking off because there was a lot of blowing snow,
Richard.
The winds were gusting, I'd say, you know, from my perspective, between 50 and 55 kilometers. Those were the gusts, the snow crews on the ground at
Pearson Airport, although, as you know, Richard, highly expert in removing the snow, were having a hard time. You could really see the snow would
continually blow even onto the runway.
Now they have several runways, I believe four or five at Toronto. They may have been changing up some of those runways given the strong winds, but
again, the snow crews were out there trying to clear the runways.
As you know, Richard, this airport trains hundreds if not thousands of hours a year for this type of an incident. It does seem like the response
personnel got there very quickly. But I also want to point out that this was unusual in terms of the amount of snow that has actually fallen in
Toronto in the last week, but anywhere from, I'd say, 40 to 45 centimeters perhaps more than that.
And again, given the temperatures, freezing temperatures to the point where some of that snow would actually be accumulating and would feel more like
ice because it is very cold, very windy.
And the crews, you could tell were out there working to try and get the airport back up to what amounted to full capacity because it had been
delayed.
Now, as you see there, Richard, the crews clearly responding quite quickly there. The emergency crews on the ground, in terms of the training, I can
tell you this is the kind of incident they train for, whether or not they actually had any alert that this plane would be coming in for a hard
landing. I mean, obviously that will come out in the investigation.
And to that point, Transport Canada alerting that they are, of course, aware of the incident and the Transportation Safety Board in Canada will
start their investigation shortly.
QUEST: You know, the interesting thing, I am just looking at the various different sites, where one can see the -- those who know about aviation and
frankly, nobody has got any idea about this one.
I mean, there is a lot of discussion, first of all, about whether one calls it an incident or a crash. That seems to be somewhat moot. The plane
clearly did have a crash landing of sorts.
[16:05:10]
But Paula, the reasons why this snow storm obviously affected it in some shape or form, but the reasons why -- do we have updated numbers yet in
terms of injuries or severity of injuries?
NEWTON: We do not. We are told that there are multiple injuries at last count, perhaps eight. That's what the paramedics were saying. Those that
were on the scene in Toronto, but we do not know yet and we do not know the severity of the injuries.
Richard, suffice it to say, as you know, evacuating an airplane in this kind of situation -- again, icy, bitterly cold temperatures, you are in the
middle of the runway, I cannot describe how windy and cold it would have been, but the plane is clearly upside down.
So picture yourself in an airplane seat, hopefully you are belted in and then you are trying to get out the emergency exits. I mean, it is
astounding what the passengers and what the crew had to do in order to get out of that plane safely.
QUEST: Paula, I am grateful for you.
Paula Newton in Ottawa, who had been through Pearson Airport earlier in the day. Now all runways, not surprisingly, are closed at the airport at the
moment. According to the notification to air whether that's from the Federal Aviation Administration.
David Soucie, the man we always need on these sort of occasions to help guide us through the labyrinth of what might have happened.
David is with us.
Come on, David, even in your long experience, I guess you have not seen anything quite like this before.
DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: Well, Richard. It is interesting you say that because right now, I am, first of all ecstatic that so many things
worked well in this. It doesn't look like it. You look at it now, you think that everything went horrifically wrong.
But from my perspective as an FAA regulator, so many things went right, the 16G seats which were put into the aircraft many years ago, prevented the
seats from coming apart during this accident, which made it survivable.
The other thing that made it survivable was that the breakaway bolts in the wings. Once the aircraft starts rolling like that, if these wings don't
break off, Richard, it tears that fuselage in half and causes fatalities.
In 1987, there was Continental Flight 1716 and I was at the Denver Airport when that happened and it was a much different outcome. It was the DC 9
that didn't have these things. So when we went out there to try to extract people, the seats were everywhere. There were fatalities. There were 25
fatalities in that one as opposed to this one who only had eight minor injuries -- from what we know, minor injuries.
QUEST: Yes, let's just pause. I want to talk about this idea of the way the plane, what might have happened. We don't know and I will emphasize that I
am going to be very careful. Clearly, just by talking about it, there is an element of speculation, but let's keep it in the realms of reasonableness
in this sense.
The plane comes in to land. There is a snowstorm of types ongoing at the moment. Something clearly causes the aircraft to completely lose its
equilibrium, turn over and the wings -- now, the first thing, of course, that strikes me, thank God, is that whatever fuel was remaining in the
aircraft does not set a light, possibly because of the snow and the wet conditions outside.
But to lose the wings, the stabilizers and the empennage is really quite an achievement.
SOUCIE: Yes. I've never seen anything that smooth. I mean that aircraft, by the time it came to rest, had lost any appendage, anything that was
sticking out of the aircraft that could have caused problems. So you can see that once it started to -- it must have gone sideways, again, we don't
want to speculate what happened, but the only way I can see in my experience is that the aircraft went sideways and then caught and began to
roll, and that's the only thing I can see that happened.
Now, what caused that? Again, only speculation, but the crosswinds were significant there or could have been. There were some gusts going through
there at the time. If those gusts exceed the crosswind landing capabilities of the airplane, they don't have a lot of choice, but to try to go around
and if they are too close to the ground, they can't even do that.
So they probably didn't have a lot of choices at that point, regardless of what caused it.
QUEST: You raise a very good point, David, this idea of what happened -- the safety standards, the forces of gravity, that those seat bolts are
designed for. I am one of those people that never -- that sort of always bristles a little bit at the whole nature of the whole thing.
But you're right, seatbelts, for example, whether they have airbags in them on some of the newer, larger aircraft, they are designed to withstand the
forces that an aircraft will go through when there is an incident like this and the forces will have been considerable on this particular occasion.
[16:10:17]
SOUCIE: Absolutely, Richard.
And again, as testament to this relationship that we have in the United States between the NTSB, the Transportation Board, who is looking at the
accidents and makes recommendations, and then the FAA, who makes the regulation that puts them into place. There is this constant battle between
the two that goes on.
In this case, of the 16G seats, that's not what happened. The FAA got that approved and it cost billions and billions of dollars to not only put those
into the new aircraft, but to do some retrofit on the old aircrafts so that these types of accidents are survivable.
We always talk about, you know, the tombstone mentality of there has to be a certain number of fatalities before something happens. And in this case,
that regulation and there's many others I could -- we don't have time to go into, that saved lives in this particular situation that was regulatory in
nature.
QUEST: And let's just pause for one second, David, I just want to bring our viewers, our dear viewers, up-to-date.
A very good morning or good evening to you if you're just joining us. It is QUEST MEANS BUSINESS, which is a special edition, which tonight or this
morning was intended to come -- we are coming to you from Tokyo. We are here in Japan. We could be talking about all sorts of issues.
We will be getting to our Tokyo coverage in just a second.
There has been a plane crash, a Delta connection aircraft has run off the runway, flipped over at Toronto Pearson Airport. The pictures you're
looking at now are of the plane that is on its back. All of those on board, all those on board are safe, although it is believed there are injuries to
at least eight people.
When you look at the pictures that we are seeing, it is not surprising. It was a Canada CRJ regional jet that was on its way from Minneapolis to
Toronto when it landed in a snow storm. The circumstances under which it landed on are not known -- well, I mean, in the sense of the conditions
were pretty dreadful, but how or why it flipped over, we don't know.
Pete Muntean, our aviation correspondent is with me now from Washington to pull together the strands of what officially we are hearing from the FAA.
We know the airport is now closed. What do we know about what happened?
PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Big questions here, Richard about how this took place, although we know from what happened in the video, the
incredible crash fire rescue response and on top of that, the incredible adherence to the rules and instructions of the crew by the passengers
streaming out of the mid cab and exit there, that is the exit that used to be over the right wing of Delta 4819.
You can see some of the fuselage there and the crash fire rescue crews responding. Of course, they got on this very quickly with fire retardant
foam to try and put out what appeared to be -- what -- at least a little bit of a post-crash fire that looks like some singeing, at least in some of
the early images near the engines on the tail of the CRJ 900, and also on the wing where there used to be the wing of this CRJ 900.
You know, only 19 days ago, Richard, that we were talking about a very different tail, the midair collision over the Potomac River. And now, by
comparison, this is a much happier ending. All 80 people on board, according to the Federal Aviation Administration in the US and this was a
US flagged flight operating out of Minneapolis Saint Paul in the US are okay and we know at least that there are 18 injured according to some of
the early reports. But we are talking about a very small percentage of the total people on board this flight who received injuries.
It is really pretty incredible so far.
QUEST: Okay. Now, Pete, it is difficult to ask you what might have happened bearing in mind the extraordinary pictures that we are looking at without
going into the realms of the incredible and seemingly impossible, but that's what we are talking about here -- to a sheared off the wings and the
tailplane. The thing flipped, but we don't know when or how, do we?
We don't know whether it was on the ground and then flipped or flipped as it touched the ground.
MUNTEAN: I've looked at some of the flight tracking data, Richard, and the really granular data from open source site, ADS-B Exchange. I can tell you
from teaching people to fly, I used to say bad landings start with bad approaches -- this was not that. This was not a bad approach as the pilots
came in to land, of course, probably some turbulence because of the wind.
We know from the weather report there at Toronto Pearson that the wind was 27 knots, gusting 35 knots, pretty directly out of the west.
[16:15:10]
And you can see in some of the images, the windsock pretty much straight out, meaning that this would have been a pretty challenging thing for a
pilot of any stripe, although two professional pilots in the cockpit of a commercial airliner make that a little bit easier.
So investigators always look at three things: They look at the aircraft, they look at the pilots, and they look at the environment. No doubt that
the environment will be a big slice of the pie chart here, because we know that the wind was pretty strong. Big questions now about the condition of
the runway, whether or not the pilots had good braking action.
The granular data essentially drops off as this flight is a few dozen feet above the ground, so we can't really get a great idea of the position of
the plane and how it took place, this rollover took place. That is something that investigators will have to look at according to the ground
scars and the marks left by the missing wings and tail, and they will be able to figure that out with the forensic perishable data, they call it, as
they begin to put this together.
We anticipate that the Canadian Transport Safety Board will lead this investigation.
QUEST: All right, Pete, I am grateful, very, very detailed, useful and important information from you as we would have expected. Thank you, Pete
Muntean joining us.
David Soucie, listening to what Pete was saying, particularly about the scorching, the nature of what they're going to be looking for, can you just
talk me through how an investigation will proceed from there on?
SOUCIE: Well, Richard, the first thing is to mitigate any further fire and that sort of thing, which they did an excellent job of. I can't emphasize
that enough.
You can see that there was some fire on the aircraft as it went upside down back by the engines there, but they quickly got out there and quickly got
the foam going. That Toronto Airport is just amazing on how quickly they responded, that's number one, and that's not really investigation, but
that's the mitigation up front.
The next thing is passenger safety, which secondly, they did an excellent job there with the passenger safety, getting passengers off the aircraft.
Third, now, as Pete mentioned, we look at the man, the machine and the environment. Those are the first three things that the NTSB looks at. So
they're looking at the pilot. Did the pilot make the right choices? Did the pilot respond in the right way? Those kinds of things and so, they will be
looking at the black boxes for that. They will be listening to the air traffic control tapes and what happened there. They will be talking about
all of that.
And secondly, on the machine, was there something wrong with the machine? Was there something that put that pilot in a situation where they had to
respond in an abnormal way? So that's the second thing that we look at as investigators.
The third thing, of course, is the environment, which is the weather and what happened there.
Now, once the NTSB does that and creates their report about it and decides and we will get something within 30 days, we have to get a preliminary
report on this, and we will get that at least from -- now, it is not the NTSB, it is the Canadian Transportation Safety Board that will produce
that.
So when that happens, then the second thing at that point is those recommendations that will then be translated into the FAA, and the FAA will
look a little bit deeper as to the latent causes. Are there things with the airport that was wrong? Was the approach wrong? Was the air traffic
controller responding the way they should? Those types of things in a more grand view.
QUEST: David, I am always grateful. Never more so than at the moment for your insight and wisdom.
David Soucie, you and I have been over the fences on a few of these incidents, and you always give us such excellent information. Thank you,
sir, for joining us for the moment.
This is QUEST MEANS BUSINESS. We are in Tokyo, in Japan, the morning sun is rising. It is bitterly cold here. We will continue in just a moment.
QUEST MEANS BUSINESS live from Japan.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:21:32]
QUEST: And a warm welcome back on a very cold morning. I am Richard Quest today in Tokyo in Japan, but our focus of attention, as you would rightly
expect this morning, is in Toronto at Toronto Pearson Airport, where a Delta Air Lines plane -- wait for this -- flipped upside down as it crashed
on landing at Toronto Pearson Airport.
You can see the jet on its back on the snowy runway. The airport said that all of the passengers on board and all the crew are accounted for. At least
eight people have been injured. The severity of those injuries is not known.
Now, you don't need to be a rocket scientist or a great investigator to work out that weather probably played some part in all of this. There were
winds of more than 50 kilometers per hour in Toronto today. There was a snow blowing nonstop and it was going gangbusters, as they might say.
Mary Schiavo is with me.
Mary, time for you and I to go over one of these again.
MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: That's right.
QUEST: But I said to David Soucie, a second or two ago, I said to David, I bet you've never seen anything quite like this either.
SCHIAVO: Well, I think he probably has. He is forgetting Asiana, which came in to San Francisco about 12 or so years ago, hit the seawall and then, of
course, it wasn't a level controlled landing and so the wingtip hit on one side and it cartwheeled and it is quite a number of years ago, but in Sioux
City, same thing, it was -- they had a problem with the aft bulkhead and they were flying simply by engines and they were going to make it.
And then the wing tip caught and they flipped and then on other planes, so if you exit the runway, which is clearly this one did, if it hit a berm, a
gulch, or equipment, something like that, with this heavy crosswind, then I think that that could explain the flip.
So yes, we've actually covered others where there has been quite a flip on the plane.
QUEST: And the fascinating part here is the way in which the plane flips, the wings are removed and all the appendages are removed. Thank God there
isn't a fire because of the sheer evacuation of fuel that would have taken place.
SCHIAVO: Yes.
QUEST: And they managed to evacuate the plane, but it would have been very difficult, if you think about all the passengers upside down in their seats
with their seatbelt fastened, having to unfasten.
We will get the stories in the hours ahead.
SCHIAVO: But it is extremely difficult, and remember, there is also sidewall injuries. There are armrest injuries, but because it is just eight
injuries, something tells me that I am sure the pilots knew this, they got the weather report that this was horrible weather, bad crosswinds, terrible
-- I imagine he or she came on and said, passengers give those seat belts an extra tug, and I've been flying for the last, you know, three or four
days in this weather.
And, I mean, even at altitude, I was giving my seatbelt, an extra tug, and these winds that were reported up to, I guess it was 50 knots or so, this
plane has a crosswind limit of 27 to 35 knots and they were in conditions well above that.
So my guess is they got the bad wind gusts right as they were landing. And after they had passed the missed approach go around decision point, and
they probably did not have a choice. That is, you know, obviously a guess based on other accidents I've worked. But luckily, everyone had their belts
on because if they hadn't, being flipped upside down with this, you would have some pretty serious injuries or deaths.
QUEST: You see, you raise a valid -- you raise a very interesting point, Mary, that as the investigation takes place, clearly the proximate cause
of, you know, what causes the plane to lose its equilibrium and flip over will be the focus.
But as you widen the discussion out, you do start to go into areas of why the approach, how the approach, whether the decision not to go around, all
of those sort of things. Was it an immediate event that took place as gusts of wind or a loss of control because of contamination on the runway?
But the decision making of the pilots will be examined at a much earlier part of the approach and landing, won't it?
SCHIAVO: Oh, absolutely. And you know, travel back to where it took off. I mean, what was the issue with that? About three days ago, I was on one of
these very planes coming out of LaGuardia, and we had gusts and we had to get out of the lineup. We literally had to taxi back. And of course,
everybody moaned and groaned on the plane. But thank God we did, because the wind gusts exceeded the limits on this aircraft.
And so, you know, I learned the hard way back when I was in flight school a million years ago, one of my flights in training at bad gust crosswind and
literally set the plane up kind of on its side. Now, I was really lucky and the gust stopped as quickly as it came, but I was past minimum decision
altitude. I was past the go around point and I had to go ahead and land. I was really lucky.
But you just have one of those and that kind of scares you for life.
QUEST: I am grateful to you as always. Thank you, Mary Schiavo is with me.
Paula Newton is also joining me at the moment.
Paula, we understand that now, we are getting more details that some of those involved, the injuries are more serious than first thought. Two or
three people have critical injuries, including a young child.
We are also hearing from the premier of the region -- of Ontario Region, who, of course, is giving thanks for the fact that there aren't more
serious injuries that have been -- that have happened at the moment.
But from your understanding of the situation, what's the current state of play as regards passengers and injuries?
NEWTON: Well, of course, everyone is relieved that the 80 passengers there and the crew were accounted for and that was also confirmed by Canada's
Transport Minister Anita Anand, who said that they will have more information to come in the next few minutes.
But as you said, three people now unfortunately critically injured and one of them is a child, I believe that child is enroute to the Children's
Hospital in downtown Toronto, and they did use the air ambulance service for the province of Ontario to get these three critically injured people,
apparently out of danger there at the airport and to where they could get critical care.
Again, I say, Richard, they do practice for this and the dispatch would have been almost instantaneous in terms of what had happened at the
airport, and in the moment that those provincial services, especially those air ambulance services, would have been dispatched again, as we've been
pointing out, not -- if you look at the plane -- the plane is upside down. So the fact I had been thinking that -- I was hoping that there weren't
children on this flight, incredibly difficult to try and evacuate safely.
And then even once you've done that, there are hazards there on the runway itself. Again, they are repeating that there are three critical injuries,
eight people injured in total and unfortunately, at least one child now has been taken to the Children's Hospital.
QUEST: Paula, you were telling me it was very cold earlier and maybe I wasn't paying as close attention as perhaps I should. You were telling me
that you'd been through the airport earlier in the day.
NEWTON: Yes, just not a little bit over an hour. I took off a little bit over an hour before this plane landed, and I saw the condition -- the
conditions.
The winds were gusting. It wasn't just the wind speed itself, but the gusts were quite fierce and blowing around a lot of snow. The crews were working,
you could tell very diligently there on those runways to try and clear some of that blowing snow.
Of course, that doesn't mean that that had anything to do with this accident whatsoever, but it is what -- it is, as you will remind me, right,
Richard, that -- maybe it didn't have anything to do with this accident, but I can tell you, it definitely goes again to the crew and the emergency
services that whether or not that had anything to do with the accident itself, that evacuating that many people from that kind of a scene in those
kinds of conditions is not an easy feat.
And thankfully, as I said, Canada's Transport minister underscoring that everyone is accounted for.
[16:30:26]
QUEST: And as we move forward in the hours ahead, we'll obviously get a great deal, more details about what took place. Paula, Canada at the
moment, of course, in turmoil on so many fronts and this is one more issue that the Canadian people will be watching with something approaching what
on earth is going on.
NEWTON: Of course, but I think it leads to the larger question which you deal with so often, Richard, which is airline safety in general. I think
most people have as much confidence in Toronto as they would in any international airport around the world. They have excellent services there
in terms of emergency services. But Richard, I also have the privilege of being in the control towers there.
And I can tell you they have redundancy built into those air traffic control centers right there at Toronto Pearson Airport, they would have
enabled the quick response, whether or not there -- I have -- we have no idea what caused this accident and perhaps it had nothing to do with the
weather. But I am telling you that they can have confidence that whatever could have been done was done.
The point, Richard, is that it just leads to a crisis in confidence with everyone flying right now, given the kinds of accidents and incidents that
we have had.
QUEST: I'm grateful. Thank you. Paula Newton in Canada. We'll be back with you in just a moment. Our full team coverage continues. David Susie, Mary
Scarborough and Pete Muntean team, we're looking at this from all aspects. I'm Richard Quest. This morning, I'm in Tokyo. I'm in Japan. We'll get to
some of the reasons why in just a moment. The pictures you're looking at live pictures and pictures from Toronto Pearson's Airport of the Delta
Connection flight.
The CRJ on its back, the nose gear you can see in the -- in the air. This is QUEST MEANS BUSINESS live from Japan.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:35:36]
QUEST: Hello. A warm welcome back to Tokyo, returning to the story that a Delta Airlines plane flipped upside down after crashing at Toronto
Pearson's Airport. The exact circumstances of what took place are not known, but we can report ambulance service now reporting that there are
three critical injuries, and that includes one child. All three of the victims have been taken to local hospitals.
Now, the airport said earlier that the passengers and crew had been accounted for, so we know everybody is, in a sense, OK at one level. There
had been winds of more than 50 kilometers per hour reported in Toronto earlier during the day. There were snowstorms, driving snow at one point.
Chad Myers is with me. It is excellent to have you with us to interpret this, Chad. Tell me about the conditions that from what you've been looking
at. What were the conditions when this plane was coming into land?
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST (via telephone): Richard, we had a gust to 62 kilometers per hour. So that is right on the threshold of a crosswind
situation for this RJ9. This is right on the number because though the wind was not blowing in the direction that the plane was landing. It was almost
at a 45-degree angle to the runway. And those are very difficult landings. When you're sitting in that plane, landing in this type of wind, if you're
on the left side of the plane, you can see the runway out your window because the plane isn't pointed down the runway itself.
It's pointed to the right. Kind of like steering your car into a crosswind. You always have to, kind of keep fighting it. Well, they don't steer the
plane. They use the rudder to crab this thing to make the plane yaw. And at the very last minute, the yaw has to go away so that the landing gear, the
rear gear, actually gets to go straight down the runway itself. So, yes, it was 18 degrees about, you know, eight below Celsius.
Wind was blowing across the one runway. Visibility was good, but I think there was a, kind of a ground wind going on there with it. The wind was
kind of blowing the snow across the runway, where the visibility in the sky was great, but you can't really hardly see the runway because of the winds
gusting that snow that Paula was talking about.
QUEST: So, there was -- the wind -- there was snow falling and blowing at the time?
MYERS: There was no snow falling from the sky. The skies were actually clear but it was the snow that had already been on the ground. It was still
loose and it was literally drifting across the runway itself, limiting the visibility of the runway to the pilots for sure.
QUEST: And just remind us of the -- of what you believe was the wind gusts at that time. Because I'm coming to Peter Goelz next. And I want to give
him all of the meteorological details that we've got. So, just remind us again of those details.
MYERS: Well, a good sustained wind of 50 and a -- without a doubt, a 62 kilometer per hour gust in that last hour. So, you know, land -- I want to
let people know that landing in wind is OK but you want to land into the wind that slows your plane down to the ground speed that allows you to land
softer. But when that wind is coming across your plane or on the corner, like it was right now, that is where the pilots really have to play this
point.
The plane into the wind and then pointed down the runway when they get very close to that landing gear touching town.
QUEST: Chad Myers, excellent to have you with us this morning as always. Peter Goelz is with me listening to what Chad was saying, factoring in with
the vast experience from the NTSB which were a part. Peter, we're showing you video now of the plume of smoke. As you and I look at this together.
Now, this is -- what you make of these pictures? Because we had seen some scorching that had taken place and where, of course, it shared off, where
the main gear had shared off. What do you make of these particular pictures?
PETER GOELZ, FORMER NTSB MANAGING DIRECTOR: Well, Richard, pretty clearly, as the wing separated from the aircraft, the fuel system was compromised
and you had a flash fire.
[16:40:10]
And as your previous guest indicated, a 60-kilometer crosswind is a very tricky landing, particularly when you've got degraded visibility and a
runway that is perhaps not as clear as it should be. So, I think -- I think very clearly the investigation is going to look carefully at those issues.
But again, it's pretty extraordinary that we're looking at, you know, a limited number of serious injuries and that all people got off safely. You
know, this accident, Richard will also you've got a child that apparently is seriously injured unfortunately. It's going to raise the question of how
should children be secured inside of aircraft again? It's been an issue, as you know, that has been debated for 20 or 30 years.
QUEST: You know, I'm just looking at these pictures. Sonia (ph) will talk about that in a second. If we look at the picture at the moment, you can
see that scorching area exactly where you say, Peter, in the middle of the aircraft, round about where the gear and the wing box would have sheared
away where you would have got that flash fire from fuel that would have been leaking as the -- as the wings sheared off.
So, it's not surprising and that black smoke that we saw is obviously a fuel fed fire, and that would explain the scorching.
GOELZ: That's exactly right, Richard. Yes. You've got the wings contain, the primary fuel cells for an aircraft of this size. If it -- if it caught
a wing in the -- in the ground on landing and tore it off, it would almost automatically have a flash fire. It's lucky that it was -- that the wing
separated close to the fuselage and didn't rupture an entire fuel cell. So there was a limited amount of fire. But I think that certainly
investigation will show that.
QUEST: And it is a -- it's the miracle, of course, is that the thing doesn't get -- that doesn't go up in flames completely before the fire
brigade. And we do see pictures of the fire brigade getting there rapidly and putting the fire retardant down. But you know better than anyone, the
danger and risks of fire once the thing lands, and it is that that often does the most destructive damage and causes the fatalities when you have a
survivable accident.
GOELZ: Yes. The fire -- the firefighters at Pearson were clearly on top of their game. We don't know whether they had a warning that this plane was in
any kind of difficulty beforehand, but they clearly got there within minutes and prevented further loss of life and a combination of (INAUDIBLE)
firefighting, the likelihood that these are 16G seats and a well-trained cabin crew means that people's lives were saved.
QUEST: Before we take a break, just remind me, 16G seats. Explain the significance of that, because that will be crucial in understanding why
there wasn't more injuries because people were, you know, the seats held their ground. Explain that, please.
GOELZ: Yes. Planes manufactured after 2008, 2009 were required to have strengthened seats so that if they had an accident on landing and the
impact was severe as this was, that the seats wouldn't come loose. We had investigated a number of accidents in which passengers survived the impact
but were killed because the sheets rip free and they were thrown throughout the cabin.
And this is a example of a regulation that was put in place that saved hundreds of lives over the last 15 years. So, these seats can take a
beating. If you're strapped in, you have a good chance of being -- of surviving.
QUEST: Peter, I'm grateful for you as always. Thank you, sir.
[16:45:01]
Before we take a break, let me just remind you of the salient facts of the crash that we are talking about this morning. At least 15 people have been
injured. Some at least three seriously, including one child as a Delta Connection plane, a CRJ crashed on landing at Toronto's Pearson Airport.
According to the authorities, the plane was coming into land. It was on a flight from Minneapolis when the incident happened, two people are in
critical condition.
None of the injuries are believed to be life threatening, although that's a fine line distinction, indeed. All crew are reported to be safe and
investigations are now, of course, under way. The runways, we believe, at the airport are still closed as they get to grips with what's been taking
place. You're looking at both live pictures of the incident -- of the airport at the moment. We'll take a short break. It's QUEST MEANS BUSINESS.
I'm Richard Quest. I was in Tokyo.
But a whole load of things to talk about in Japan this morning. But obviously, events in Canada take priority with what's happened with this
incident in this plane crash.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
QUEST: News coverage this morning from breaking news. This video showing the moments after the Delta Connection CRJ plane crashed at Toronto Pearson
Airport. You can see the smoke billowing out of the aircraft, and when we compare all the various pictures that we are now getting this morning. So,
you get an idea, that smoke is probably coming from the middle of the aircraft, where the wings disconnected from the aircraft and that will be
the fuel burning that thank God, the miracle being that the whole thing didn't go up in flames.
But there will have been quite a lot of fuel in the wings, in the fuel cells that would have been released when the wings sheared off the aircraft
as it rolled over. The reasons as to why it happened, we do not know. There are reports that at least 15 people have been hurt, while none of the
injuries are considered to be life threatening. Three of those injured are said to be in critical condition.
One of them is a child. Maria Schiavo. Mary, always grateful (INAUDIBLE) without you, frankly, helping us understand these things.
[16:50:02]
The fuel -- it seems to me, one of the great miracles is the whole thing didn't go up in flames, bearing in mind the wings did release fuel, which
does appear to have burned from the center of the fuselage.
SCHIAVO: That's right. I mean, it is very fortunate, because even if they were, you know, approaching the end of their flight, as you know, they
still have to have enough fuel on board to get to their secondary if they can't make the landing, they have to go to another airport and then plus 30
minutes after that. So, they have a lot of fuel that they have to have on board, even if they're nearing the end of their journey on this flight, as
they were.
So, it's very fortunate it did not and again, Toronto Pearson has lots of emergency equipment. They've been through this before. As I mentioned
earlier, they had an Air France jumbo jet come in burn completely. It could mean -- could barely see it was a plane. It was just a chart outlined on
the ground. And they got the fire extinguished and everyone was saved. So, kudos also to the crew on the ground. But that is one lucky break that it
did not explode.
QUEST: You know, you remind me of that. It was a 340 if I'm not mistaken, correct me if I'm wrong. It was a 340, it was Air France or Canada and --
but the thing I seem to remember about that because I was -- I was broadcasting live at the time of that one was just the extraordinary nature
that everybody survived.
SCHIAVO: That's right. It was an extraordinary crash, because when you look at the images of that aircraft now. you know, in retrospect, literally,
there's nothing left. There's just this charred mark on the ground in the shape of a plane. Now, people were injured. There were injuries on that
plane, but no one died, and really no one could believe it. And again, in that case, the plane did go off the end of the runway, it came to rest
literally near the fence.
And there's this big freeway in Toronto that runs by Toronto Pearson, and they even had response vehicles coming there to get people. Some people
even got off the plane and plane went through the fence, went on the highway and flagged down motorists for help. And literally, anyone in the
area, all of Toronto, tried to help. It was a miracle that everyone did survive. And here, like I say, it's just really lucky that it didn't --
that it did not, you know, explode, it didn't burn. There was a little bit of fire there.
And I think some of that could also come from the engines, the engines, it went off the runway, it flipped it would be ingesting materials and that
would burn in that turbine engine, just like a bird does if it goes through.
QUEST: Mary, I'm grateful. Thank you. Paula Newton is with me pulling together the strands of what we know. The hospitals reporting the blessing
being that it's believed that none of the injuries are life threatening, although there are critically injured known from the local hospitals.
What's the local authorities saying, including the premier, who, of course, has put out a statement on X just praising the work of those rescue
authorities?
NEWTON: Yes. And a lot of the training that goes into this in the emergency response is a provincial responsibility. A lot of it is and I'm glad you
and Mary were talking about that incident. I too covered that, and it was extraordinary, the lives that were saved that day, similar to what happened
today. The speed with which they obviously evacuated that airplane, and the fact that the ground crews responded so quickly.
Unfortunately, Richard, as you indicate, there are at least 15 injuries that we know of right now. Less than a handful are critical. Unfortunately,
one child taken to the hospital, though very close by, airlifted to the hospital there at the Children's Hospital. The transport minister is --
says that she will be obviously giving us more details about this in the coming hours. And the Transportation Safety Board in Canada, obviously
already beginning their investigation.
And as you've warned me many times, Richard, just because we see that there is wind, we see that there is snow, this also would have built up almost
like ice on the runway. It doesn't necessarily mean that the weather conditions had anything to do with the incident that you see there. But
having been to the airport, I was there about an hour before this plane landed, the conditions were definitely an anomaly for that airport.
Not just the wind, but also the amount of snow that was blowing around and the fact that those runways were icy. We had a 45-minute delay on the
tarmac, given the fact that they were using different runways at Toronto Airport, given the winds and I suspect many people were going through that
as well in Toronto this afternoon.
QUEST: Paula, I'm grateful to you. Thank you for putting some perspective into it. Paula Newton joining us from -- joining us from Canada.
[16:55:07]
Allow me to pull together the strands of what we now know. A plane, Canada regional jet, CRJ crashed upon landing and Toronto Pearson Airport. There
are known to be casualties. Three people are critically injured but none of the injuries are believed to be life threatening. The weather conditions,
according to Chad Myers, were just about at the limits of extremities of acceptability for landing in this situation.
There was -- although it was clear skies, there was snow blowing, the exact circumstances under which the plane landed, then flipped, the fuel fed fire
of limited duration. All of that remains to be investigated. For the moment, of course, the pictures tell the story. I'll be back in just a
moment with a profitable moment. This is QUEST MEANS BUSINESS of sorts from Tokyo.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
QUEST: Tonight's profitable moment. I take the opportunity of doing a profitable moment. We're in Japan. We're in Tokyo for all sorts of reasons,
and we were hoping to bring you a program, obviously, about the Japanese economy, tariffs and the like, but the nature of the news and the nature of
our businesses that circumstances change, as you can obviously tell. It's worth just pausing for a moment to think about what we've been reporting in
the last hour.
The Delta Connection plane that crashed on landing at Pearson. I spend a great part of my working life talking about airplane incidents, crashes and
the like. But what I take from this morning is the industry that is put together where safety is first, that's such an important -- that such an
incredible incident can take place. A plane on its roof, passengers managed to be evacuated from the aircraft.
A few critical injuries, but none life threatening. That, in itself, is worthy of us just celebrating the success and safety of today's aviation
world. Think about that, and I'll happily get on a plane any day.
And that's QUEST MEANS BUSINESS of sorts for tonight. I'm Richard Quest in Tokyo in Japan. Whatever you're up to in the hours ahead, I hope it's
profitable. I'll be back with you tomorrow.
[17:00:07]
ANNOUNCER: -- CNN Breaking News.
END
