A woman who survived the upside-down crash of a Delta Air Lines flight shared harrowing clips of the incident online.
“I’m upside down,” the terrified passenger, Ashley Zook, said.
Ashley was aboard the Delta Air Lines Flight 4819 that crash-landed at Canada’s Toronto Pearson International Airport on Monday, February 17.
Viewers were shocked to see the aircraft overturned on the snow-swept runway.
A woman who survived the “upside-down” crash of a Delta Air Lines flight shared harrowing clips of the incident online
Image credits: John Nelson
The flight, operated by the airline’s subsidiary Endeavor Air, had taken off from Minneapolis and found itself belly-up after landing in Toronto at about 2:15 p.m.
Ashley was one of the 76 passengers and four crew members who miraculously survived the plane crash. Eighteen people suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
While still inside the flipped plane, Ashley managed to capture herself strapped to her airline seat.
Image credits: Ian Crowder
“My plane crashed,” read the text over her social media story. “I’m upside down.”
She went on to post several videos on Snapchat, capturing her fellow survivors spilling out of the upside-down aircraft.
“Oh my God. I was just in a plane crash,” the shaken passenger said as she laid eyes on the wreckage.
It is currently unclear what caused the plane to topple and catch fire.
“My plane crashed,” read the text of Ashley Zook’s post. “I’m upside down”
Image credits: CBC
Image credits: CBC
Another startled passenger, John Nelson, shared a video of passengers fumbling out of the aircraft as fire crews acted quickly to douse the flames.
Describing it as a “typical flight” from Minneapolis to Toronto, John said the “runways were in kind of a weird condition.”
“When we hit, it was super hard,” the passenger told CNN. “We hit the ground and the plane went sideways and I believe we skidded on our side and flipped over on our back.”
One passenger described the journey as a “typical flight” from Minneapolis to Toronto before the landing
Image credits: eggxit
He recalled a “big fireball” on the plane’s left side.
“I was able to just unbuckle and sort of fall and push myself to the ground,” he added. “And then some people were kind of hanging and needed some help being helped down, and others were able to get down on their own.”
Fellow flyer Pete Koukov said he had no idea what happened until the aircraft touched the ground with a hard landing.
Image credits: CNN
“We hit the ground, and we were sideways, and then we were upside down hanging like bats,” he told the outlet.
After unbuckling and pushing himself to the ground, he managed to help some of his fellow travelers out of their seats before making his way out of the wreckage.
“Just feeling lucky and happy I got to give the person I didn’t know sitting next to me a big hug, that we were OK,” Pete told the outlet.
“We were upside down hanging like bats,” fellow flyer Pete Koukov said
Image credits: CTV News
It was also a relief for him to see his friends, who had arrived at the airport to pick him up, and “give them a big hug,” he added.
One video captured passengers walking on the ceiling to evacuate the aircraft.
The commercial passenger jet had one wing and its tail severely damaged.
18 people were left injured, with a child and two other adults sustaining critical injuries
Image credits: xJonNYC
Among the injured, those who sustained critical injuries included a child, a man in his 60s, and a woman in her 40s.
The child was listed to be in good condition by Monday evening after receiving medical attention from the Hospital for Sick Children.
Other passengers reportedly sustained mild injuries.
The slim Bombardier CRJ900 aircraft had been cleared for landing at Toronto Pearson Airport by air traffic controllers.
The pilots were warned about a possible air-flow “bump” during their descent.
While the exact cause of the crash was not immediately clear, airport fire chief Todd Aitken said the “runway was dry” and there were “no cross-wind conditions” at the time.
Canadian authorities said the cause of the crash remains under investigation
Image credits: Ian Crowder
Deborah Flint, the president and CEO of Toronto Pearson International Airport, said there were no lives lost in the incident.
She credited this to the efforts of the “heroic and trained” first responders who rushed to the scene immediately after the crash to bring the situation under control and ensure the passengers’ safe evacuation.
It was a “textbook response,” she said.
The Delta Air Lines crash has joined a long list of plane accidents that took place in recent weeks
Image credits: WFAA
The news of the Delta Air Lines plane crash came weeks after American Airlines Flight 5342 collided with a US Army Black Hawk helicopter.
All 60 passengers and four crew members on the passenger flight, along with the three soldiers flying in the military chopper, were killed in the tragic incident.
Image credits: CBC News: The National
Days later, a Japan Airlines jet slammed into the tail of a parked Delta plane at the airport on February 5.
A small aircraft also crashed into a bus in a Brazilian neighborhood earlier this month.
Last week, a pilot tragically lost his life after a private jet veered off a runway in Arizona and crashed into a business jet parked nearby.
The private jet was owned by Vince Neil, the lead singer of Mötley Crüe. His girlfriend Rain Andreani and her friend Ashley were on the plane and survived the collision.
“Time to start driving and riding horses again,” a social media user said
