No one died in the crash of Delta Flight 4819 in Toronto on Monday, and safety experts say that’s because aviation safety systems worked as they were meant to: from seat design to flight attendant training.
“I don’t believe in miracles,” said Capt. Ross Aimer, a retired United Airlines pilot and CEO of Aero Consulting Experts.
“It’s the professionalism, the training” that were what ensured no fatalities, he said. “We see the system works as it was designed.”
There was the Bombardier CRJ-900 aircraft’s design and its ability to withstand rollover during the accident, he said. The seats and seat belts also did their job and kept passengers secure, hanging upside down in the overturned plane.
Without them, further injuries would “definitely” have occurred, said Hassan Shahidi, president and CEO of the Flight Safety Foundation.
“People don’t think about, why do we have regulations? Why do we have design criteria?” Aimer said.
“Aircraft manufacturers are held to very, very high standards, and this is the reason: that we see people actually walking away from a horrific crash like this.”
The first responders at Toronto Pearson International Airport were also crucial to putting out fires, Shahidi said.
They were on site within minutes, with a “textbook” response, Toronto Airport Fire Chief Todd Aitken said Tuesday. “We train for such events,” he confirmed.
And the two Endeavor Air flight attendants acted “courageously” and quickly guided all 76 passengers out of the upside-down aircraft, Shahidi said.
“Aviation’s first responders save lives. Listen to your Flight Attendants,” Endeavor’s flight attendant union posted on X alongside a video of one of those crew members ushering people off the plane.
In an internal Tuesday morning memo obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Delta CEO Ed Bastian said he was “incredibly proud of the professionalism” of the crew and the first responders.
Aimer, however, added he was dismayed to see images of passengers evacuating the aircraft with personal items: “Anytime you delay or hinder an evacuation, you endanger the lives of those flight attendants,” he said.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Cause still unknown
An investigation into the cause of the crash remains ongoing and its complete findings could take years. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada is in charge, with help from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board. The TSB said Tuesday it had removed the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder from the plane and sent them to the board’s lab for further analysis.
Alan Armstrong, an Atlanta-based aviation attorney and licensed pilot, said based on videos he’s seen, he believes the plane appeared to be making a “stable approach” before it suddenly hit the tarmac.
He wondered if perhaps a strong crosswind caused the left wing to come up. “That is not supposed to happen.”
Aimer said he “definitely” believed weather was a factor.
But, he admitted, “a lot of times whenever we talk right after a crash, it turns out to be completely wrong.”
Chief Aitken said Monday evening the runway was dry and there were no crosswind conditions at the time of the incident, but he and other airport officials declined to respond to follow-up questions Tuesday about weather conditions.
Shahidi would not speculate on any cause of the accident. But he did call it “absolutely surprising” and “unique. … This should not happen.”
The “confluence” of factors that will be investigated, he said, include the weather, “the profile of the approach of the airplane … the speed, the angle of the approach.”
Something else to watch for, alongside the investigation, will be any litigation from passengers injured in the flight, said Armstrong, who has represented survivors of aviation accidents.
Passenger injuries on site ranged from back sprains to head injuries and anxiety, as well as headaches, nausea and vomiting due to exposure to jet fuel at the accident site, a Peel Regional Paramedic Services official said Tuesday.
Two of the 21 injured passengers who were transported to hospitals remained under medical care Tuesday, according to Delta. There were 76 passengers and four crew on board.
Based on the international regulations that govern international air carriage, Armstrong said Delta will have the burden of proof to show they were not negligent in causing the accident.
If they can prove that, there would be a cap in damages that injured passengers might be able to sue for, he said.
In his Tuesday memo, Bastian said Delta will “do everything we can” to support the Endeavor crew affected and continue to provide “support and resources to customers and families.”
“Events like these remind us why our entire industry is united on the importance of safety — it’s the one area where we never compete.“
Aviation remains “the safest form of transportation in the world,” Bastian wrote, “and that’s because of the way we work together, support each other, and constantly learn from every incident, whether large or small.”
This story has been updated with additional information from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada.
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