Delta Passenger Describes Scene after Plane Flips at Toronto Airport
Star Tribune
(TNS)
“Mass chaos” is how one Minnesotan aboard the Delta flight from Minneapolis to Toronto described the immediate aftermath inside the jetliner that crash-landed Monday afternoon.
“I did notice the winds were super gusty,” 47-year-old John Nelson, of Bayport, told CNN in an on-air interview. “The snow had kinda blown over the runways. It was routine, but it was noticeable that the runways were in kind of a weird condition.”
As of Tuesday morning, of the 21 injured passengers that were taken to a nearby hospital, all but two have been released, according to Delta.
No fatalities have been reported as aviation agencies investigate what led to the crash of the CRJ-900 aircraft operated by Endeavor Air, a wholly owned regional subsidiary of Delta that is based in Minneapolis.
Endeavor Flight 4819 departed the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport shortly after 11:34 a.m., about an hour late, according to FlightAware.com. It crashed in Toronto about 2:15 p.m. EST, according to Delta.
“When we hit, it was super hard,” Nelson continued. “We hit the ground, and the plane went sideways, and I believe we skidded on our side and flipped over on our back.
“Where we ended up there was a big fireball on the left side of the plane. It was mass chaos.”
Everyone in the fuselage came to rest upside down, he told the network.
“We kind of let ourselves go and fell to hit the ceiling, which is a surreal thing,” he said. And then everybody was like, ‘Get out! Get out!’ We could smell the jet fuel. And then we just crawled out of the back of the airplane."
James Zook said his sister Ashley Zook, whose social media profile indicates she lives in Mound, was on the plane for a business trip to Toronto. He said his sister, who uploaded a video of the ordeal on Snapchat, had talked to her family and that she was doing fine.
“I’m glad that my sister is all right, and I’m glad that the passengers are also all right,” he said.
Regional carriers such as Endeavor are separate entities that fly under the guise of a major airline. Endeavor, flying as Delta Connection, has its own work crews of pilots, flight attendants and maintenance.
Delta and other commercial airlines contract many of their smaller routes to regional carriers. Passengers may not realize they are flying on a regional airline as tickets, aircraft logos and cabin interiors all reflect the major carrier.
©2025 The Minnesota Star Tribune. Visit startribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC
