TORONTO – A plane crashed and flipped on its back at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport in Canada, injuring 18 passengers, officials say, following a weekend of heavy snowfall that led to flight delays and cancellations.
All 76 passengers and four crew members on the Delta Air Lines flight from Minneapolis in the US to Toronto were accounted for, CBC reported quoting Deborah Flint, president and CEO of the Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA). There were 22 Canadians on board, she added. The other passengers were multinational.
“We are very grateful there was no loss of life and relatively minor injuries,” Flint told reporters, adding that the quick response was due to the “heroic” first responders at the airport.
“We are very focused on the care and the concern and the passengers and the crew, some of whom have already been reunified with their friends and their families. Others we have in a comfortable place right here at the airport in an environment where they’re getting a lot of care and support from my staff.”
In an update on Monday night, the GTAA said 17 injured people were taken to hospital immediately and another was transported later. Delta Air Lines also said in an update on Monday evening that 18 people were injured.
The number of injured has fluctuated in reports since the crash occurred. Earlier, Peel Regional Paramedic Services, which services Mississauga, Ont., where the airport is located just outside Toronto, said 15 passengers in total were hurt, after initially saying it believed eight people had been injured.
Ornge, Ontario’s air ambulance service, said earlier in the day that a child was taken to Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children with critical injuries, while a man in his 60s and a woman in her 40s were also taken to Toronto hospitals with critical injuries.
But that wasn’t confirmed by Flint, who said the airport operator didn’t know how many people were critically hurt.
Three air ambulance helicopters and two critical care land ambulances were dispatched to the scene, Ornge said.
