Delta Connection Flight 4819 was a scheduled international passenger flight from Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport in the United States to

Toronto Pearson International Airport Toronto Pearson International Airport is an international airport located in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. It is the main airport serving Toronto, its metropolitan area, and the surrounding region known as the Golden Horseshoe. Pearson is the ...

in Canada that crashed upon landing on February 17, 2025. The preliminary investigation determined that the aircraft experienced a

hard landing A hard landing occurs when an aircraft or spacecraft hits the ground with a greater vertical speed and force than in a normal landing. The terms ''hard landing'' and ''firm landing'' are often confused though are inherently different. A hard la ...

that caused a

landing gear Landing gear is the undercarriage of an aircraft or spacecraft that is used for taxiing, takeoff or landing. For aircraft, it is generally needed for all three of these. It was also formerly called ''alighting gear'' by some manufacturers, s ...

component to fracture, leading to its collapse and the plane overturning on the runway. The aircraft was a Bombardier CRJ900 regional jet aircraft operated by Endeavor Air, a wholly owned subsidiary of

Delta Air Lines Delta Air Lines, Inc. is a Major airlines of the United States, major airline in the United States headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia, operating nine hubs, with Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport being its ...

. The flight had 80 people on board: 76 passengers and 4 crew members. While all occupants survived, 21 sustained injuries.

Background

Aircraft

The aircraft involved was a 16-year-old Bombardier CRJ900, a regional jet. It was configured as a CRJ900LR, denoting that it was modified to operate longer-range flights as compared to the base model. The jet had a seating capacity of up to 76 passengers. Manufactured in 2008, it was powered by two General Electric CF34-8C5 turbofan engines, it bore the manufacturer's

serial number A serial number (SN) is a unique identifier used to ''uniquely'' identify an item, and is usually assigned incrementally or sequentially. Despite being called serial "numbers", they do not need to be strictly numerical and may contain letters ...

15194 and was registered as Endeavor Air operates as

Delta Connection Delta Connection is a brand name under which Delta Air Lines has air service agreements with domestic regional air carriers that feed traffic to their network by serving passengers primarily in small and medium-sized cities in the domestic mark ...

, a brand name used by

for regional airline flights it sells under

codeshare agreement A codeshare agreement, also known simply as codeshare, is a business arrangement, common in the aviation industry, in which two or more airlines publish and market the same flight under their own airline designator and flight number (the "airli ...

s with three partner airlines, including Endeavor Air. Endeavor is a wholly owned subsidiary of Delta. This was the second Bombardier CRJ series

hull loss A hull loss is an aviation accident that damages the aircraft beyond economic repair, resulting in a total loss. The term also applies to situations where the aircraft is missing, the search for its wreckage is terminated, or the wreckage is ...

in 2025, following the Potomac River mid-air collision near

Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport is a public airport in Arlington County, Virginia, United States, from Washington, D.C. The closest airport to the nation's capital, it is one of two airports owned by the federal government and ope ...

in late January.

Passengers and crew

The flight had 80 people on board, 4 crew members and a full load of 76 passengers, of whom 22 were Canadian nationals. The crew comprised a

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader or highest rank officer of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police depa ...

, a first officer, and two

flight attendant A flight attendant is a member of the aircrew whose primary responsibility is ensure the safety of passengers in the cabin of an aircraft across all stages of flight. Their secondary duty is to see to the comfort of passengers. Flight attenda ...

s. Delta said the pilots were experienced and familiar with flying in wintry conditions. In response to misinformation circulating on social media, Delta issued a statement on February 20 to clarify the pilots' backgrounds, refute claims that either pilot had failed training events, and reiterate that both crew members exceeded the minimum federal requirements for flight experience and were fully certified for their respective positions. The captain was hired by

Mesaba Airlines Mesaba Aviation, Inc. (operating as Mesaba Airlines) was a regional airline in the United States that operated from 1944 until it merged with Pinnacle Airlines in 2012 to form Endeavor Air. It was based in Eagan, Minnesota From 2010 to 2012, the ...

, a predecessor to Endeavor Air, in October 2007. Following the 2012 merger of Mesaba with

Pinnacle Airlines Endeavor Air is a regional airline in the United States headquartered at the Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Delta Air Lines, and staffs, operates, and maintains aircr ...

to form Endeavor, he continued his career with the airline, serving as an active-duty captain as well as holding roles in pilot training and flight safety. At the time of the crash, he was the

pilot monitoring In commercial aviation with a two-person flight crew, the pilot flying (PF) is the pilot operating the flight controls of the aircraft. The other pilot is referred to as the pilot monitoring (PM) or pilot not flying (PNF). Before a flight departs, ...

. He had a total of 3,570 flight hours, including 764 on CRJ-series aircraft. However, he had primarily been instructing pilots in simulators and had logged only 3.5 hours of actual flight time in the previous 30 days. The first officer joined Endeavor in January 2024, completed her training in April, and had been flying for the airline since. She was the

pilot flying In commercial aviation with a two-person flight crew, the pilot flying (PF) is the pilot operating the flight controls of the aircraft. The other pilot is referred to as the pilot monitoring (PM) or pilot not flying (PNF). Before a flight departs, ...

during the crash. She had accumulated 1,422 total flight hours, including 418.7 on CRJ-series aircraft.

Weather

At the time of the crash,

blowing snow Blowing snow is snow lifted from the surface by the wind, at eye level () or more, that will reduce visibility. Blowing snow can come from falling snow or snow that already accumulated on the ground but is picked up and blown about by strong winds. ...

persisted following a winter storm that had passed over the region in the previous two days. Winds were coming from the west at , with gusts reaching up to , and the temperature was about .

Crash

The aircraft crashed upon landing on Runway 23 in

at (19:13

UTC Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is the primary time standard globally used to regulate clocks and time. It establishes a reference for the current time, forming the basis for civil time and time zones. UTC facilitates international communica ...

) on February 17, 2025. The

T-tail A T-tail is an empennage wikt:configuration, configuration in which the tailplane of an aircraft is mounted to the top of the vertical stabilizer, fin. The arrangement looks like the capital letter T, hence the name. The T-tail differs fr ...

and right wing separated and ignited a fire, while the fuselage came to rest slightly off the right side of the runway, upside down, and facing the opposite direction from its landing. A passenger on the plane posted a video to social media showing the evacuation process and the overturned plane. Video taken from an aircraft awaiting takeoff showed Flight 4819 slamming into the ground as it landed, bouncing and sliding forward in a roll to the right. Fire crews sprayed water on the aircraft as smoke wafted from the fuselage and passengers were still evacuating. Aviation safety experts said that the flight attendants and the design of the aircraft played an important role in the relative safety of the passengers in the crash. Videos shared online showed the flight attendants working to quickly evacuate everyone from the aircraft. Emergency officials reported that 21 people were injured in the crash, suffering back sprains, head lacerations, and nausea from inhaling aviation fuel fumes. Among them, a child and two adults, a man in his 60s and a woman in her 40s, were critically injured. Three of the injured were transported to hospitals by

air ambulance Air medical services are the use of aircraft, including both fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters to provide various kinds of urgent medical care, especially prehospital, emergency and critical care to patients during aeromedical evacuation an ...

. According to Delta Air Lines, all 21 injured passengers were discharged from hospitals within four days, with the last release occurring on February 20.

Aftermath

The airport halted all take-offs and landings until , when the airport resumed departing and arriving traffic.

Montréal–Trudeau International Airport Montréal–Trudeau International Airport () or Montréal–Trudeau, formerly known and still commonly referred to as Montréal–Dorval International Airport (''Aéroport international Montréal-Dorval''), is an international airport in Dor ...

Ottawa Macdonald–Cartier International Airport Ottawa/Macdonald–Cartier International Airport or simply Ottawa International Airport is the main international airport serving Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and its metropolitan area as well as Gatineau, Quebec known as the National Capital Re ...

John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport , or simply Hamilton Airport, is an international airport in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The airport is part of the neighbourhood of Mount Hope, southwest of Downtown Hamilton and southwest of Tor ...

and other airports accepted flights diverted following the incident. Delta Air Lines offered in compensation to each passenger aboard the plane, adding that the offer had "no strings attached" and did not affect their future legal rights.

Investigation

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) sent over 20 investigators to begin investigating the crash. To support the investigation, representatives were sent from

Transport Canada Transport Canada () is the Ministry (government department), department within the Government of Canada responsible for developing regulations, Policy, policies and Public services, services of road, rail, marine and air Transport in Canada, tra ...

, the U.S.

National Transportation Safety Board The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is an independent U.S. government investigative agency responsible for civil transportation accident investigation. In this role, the NTSB investigates and reports on aviation accidents and inci ...

, the U.S.

Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is a Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government agency within the United States Department of Transportation, U.S. Department of Transportation that regulates civil aviation in t ...

, Endeavor Air, Delta Air Lines, and aircraft manufacturer

Mitsubishi Aircraft Corporation , abbreviated MITAC, was a Japanese company that developed, produced, sold and supported the Mitsubishi SpaceJet (formerly MRJ) passenger airliners. The manufacturing of the aircraft was planned to be carried out by parent company Mitsubishi He ...

(which purchased the CRJ programme from Bombardier in 2019). On February 18, investigators said they had retrieved the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder (also known as the "black boxes") and sent them to a TSB laboratory for further analysis. Two of the airport's runways were closed to allow investigators to examine the wreckage and the runway. On March 20, the TSB released its preliminary report. They found that 2.6 seconds before touchdown, the aircraft's rapid descent triggered the enhanced ground proximity warning system, which sounded a "sink rate" alert in the cockpit. Just before touchdown, the plane's airspeed was and descending at . This was slower than the recommended landing speed ( V_Ref) of , and the rate of descent exceeded the landing gear's designed limit for absorbing impact, which is . The weather at the time of the landing included gusty wind conditions. In such a situation, the pilot must keep a speed higher than the normal landing speed and carefully adjust engine power and plane attitude whenever a gust occurs.David Schaper, NPR
"Investigators say a Delta jet descended too quickly before Toronto crash last month"
20 Mar. 2025, retrieved Mar. 22, 2025 As the aircraft's right main landing gear made contact with the runway, a part fractured, which caused the gear to collapse. After the collapse, the wing broke off from the fuselage. The detachment of the wing caused jet fuel to spill from the wing tank, which ignited and caught fire. The TSB cautioned that the exact sequence of events is still under investigation.

Notes

References

External links

Air transportation safety investigation A25O0021
– Transportation Safety Board of Canada * {{DEFAULTSORT:Delta Connection CRJ 900 crash, 2025 2025 in Ontario Accidents and incidents involving the Bombardier CRJ900 Airliner accidents and incidents in Canada Aviation accidents and incidents in 2025 Delta Air Lines accidents and incidents February 2025 in Canada History of Mississauga Toronto Pearson International Airport 2025 disasters in Canada