A preliminary report for a Delta flight that was upside down in a collision landing at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport last month shows the plane was falling at high speed.
Twenty-one people were injured in a failed landing on February 17th.
The flight arriving from Minneapolis was run by Endeavour Air and had 80 passengers, 76 passengers and four crew members.
The report, released Thursday by the Canadian Road Safety Commission, did not reveal the cause of the crash.
At landing, “the aircraft affected the runway, leaving the right wing, causing a fire,” the report said. The aircraft then capsizes and passengers hanging upside down in their seats, sliding down the runway until they stopped.
Reports show that of the 21 injured people, two have been reportedly seriously injured.
This report broke every 2-second play in the moment before landing.
2:12:40, 3.6 seconds before the touchdown, the descent rate increased. One second later, the flight-enhanced ground-proximity warning system “Sinkrate” alert sounded, indicating a high descent rate.
Then, 1.6 seconds before the touchdown, the aircraft was “just below the glide slope.” This is a system that leads the aircraft onto the runway during landing for a controlled descent.
The plane’s right main landing device made contact with the runway at 2:12:43.
In the touchdown, part of the main landing device on the right, the landing gear folds into a contracted position, destroying the roots of the wing between the fuselage (the body of the plane) and the landing gear, the wings peel off, “releasing a cloud of ignited jet fuel,” the report says.
The plane then slid down the runway and rolled to the right until the plane’s body was turned upside down.
“The majority of the tail, including most of the vertical stabilizer and the entire horizontal stabilizer, were stripped during the roll,” the report states.
After the stop, passengers and crew were evacuated. After evacuation, the aircraft rescued the firefighters and entered the plane’s body.
Shortly afterwards, “an explosion occurred outside the aircraft in the left root area,” the report said. The Safety Board said the cause of the explosion is still under investigation.
“For everyone at Endeavor Air and Delta, nothing is more important than the safety of our customers and people. So we’re continuing to be fully involved as part of the survey led by the Canada Road Safety Board,” Delta said in a statement Thursday. “Respect for the integrity of this work continues through the final report, Endeavor Air and Delta will decline to comment.”
