First responders acted quickly as flight crews led passengers to safety

Emergency services responded within seconds after a crash landing at Runway 23 at Toronto's airport at about 2:15 p.m. Monday.

Toronto Pearson’s fire crew attended the scene where the Delta Airlines' Bombardier CJR-900 flipped over onto its back leaving the plane in flames with the runway soaked in jet fuel. 

Todd Aitken, Toronto Pearson’s Fire Chief, said most passengers self-evacuated from the restraints and seat beats from the plane. 

As passengers fled the plane, firefighters sprayed the fuselage with fire-suppressing foam. 

“Upon arrival, the crew did witness the spot fires,” he said. “They were able to quickly knock down the spot fires using the aircraft rescue firefighting apparatus. 

Once the flames were doused, the unit performed a primary search and rescue, Aitken said. 

“The passengers were all evacuated and then they were taken to a secondary location for triage with their mutual aid partners,” he said. 

All 76 passengers and four crew members who boarded Delta Air Lines flight 4819 survived with no life-threatening injuries.  

Although no fatal casualties, Cory Tkatch, command of operations with the Peel Regional Paramedic Service, said the medical response team had to deal with multiple contusions from the passengers aboard. 

“Upon our arrival of the crash site, our staff were faced with a multitude of different injuries,” he said. “Mainly stemming from back sprains, head injuries, anxiety, some headaches, nausea [and] vomiting due to fuel exposure.” 

Out of the 21 passengers who were hospitalized, 19 of them were confirmed to have been released with only two remaining with an unknown timeline for release.  

Marc Andrews, Peel Regional deputy chief, said he and his unit were able to conduct a proper response despite the tough cold, snowy and windy weather conditions. 

“We're used to working in [these conditions] as first responders, along with the other first responders,” he said. 

Andrews said all emergency services did a tremendous job of responding in those winter conditions while applauding their efforts.

Deborah Flint, the CEO and president of Toronto’s International Airport, also expressed her gratitude towards the flight crew and rescue workers. 

“It's really important to recognize how grateful we are that there was no loss of life or life-threatening injuries in yesterday's accident,” she said. “We saw the most important role that they play in action yesterday, the crew of Delta flight 4819 heroically led passengers to safety, evacuating a jet that had overturned on the runway on landing that was amid with smoke and fire.” 

Flint said the Transportation Safety Board is in charge of the investigation into the cause of the crash. She said two runways remain closed. 

“We expect that it could be about 48 hours, until that time, two of our runways will remain closed and that is affecting the volume of traffic that we're having,” she said. 

Because of the runway closures, Flint advised passengers to check flight status for any delays or cancellations.