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Delta Air Lines plane <\/p>\nAviation consultant Keith Mackey says the initial stages of the investigation reveal mechanical issues along the pilot\u2019s door, audio logs, and more. <\/p>\n
TORONTO \u2014 As his plane descended in Toronto, John Nelson looked out the window to get a view of the city and felt the aircraft was coming down at an abnormally high speed. Moments later, the plane hit the ground so hard that it broke the landing gear, slid, flipped and burst into flames on the runway at Pearson airport.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was like being in a washer,\u201d Nelson said in an interview, describing how the plane flipped over in the fiery crash one year ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we finally came to a stop … we were upside down, there was jet fuel smell. There was fire.\u201d<\/p>\n
He remembers crashing onto the plane\u2019s ceiling after unbuckling his seatbelt. <\/p>\n
Miraculously, all 76 passengers and four crew members survived when Delta Air Lines Flight 4819 from Minneapolis, operated by subsidiary Endeavor Air, crashed on Feb. 17, 2025. Though most escaped unharmed, 21 people on board were taken to hospital.<\/p>\n
Nelson, a father of two who lives in Minnesota, said he\u2019s still reeling. <\/p>\n
The crash has left him with injuries that include a torn retina, a floater in one of his eyes, disk and neck injuries, and numbness in his fingers that radiates through his arm, he said. He was an Ironman triathlete and was planning to compete again last May, but he couldn\u2019t due to his injuries.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere isn\u2019t a day that goes by that somehow it doesn\u2019t come up or impact my life in some way, you know, everything from my job to my family, to my health,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s just been a very eventful year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nelson said the incident has also taken a toll on his mental health. <\/p>\n
He said he\u2019s seeing a therapist and a psychologist and is taking several different medications to deal with anxiety, sleep disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. <\/p>\n
\u201cNot one of these things was in my life before Feb. 17 last year,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Nelson said he\u2019s taking a couple of days off work on the anniversary of the crash just to spend time with his family and reflect on what has impacted every aspect of his life. <\/p>\n
Delta Air Lines plane <\/p>\n
Fellow passenger Nate Richie said he didn\u2019t realize how much the approaching anniversary of the crash would affect him until his wife recently spoke to him about how he seemed distant. <\/p>\n
One year later, Richie said he still grapples with the physical and mental toll of the crash every day. <\/p>\n
Richie remembers the screaming and crying and confusion inside the plane that day as he and his fellow passengers hung upside down from their seats.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot goes through your mind in just a split second. It\u2019s almost like time stands still,\u201d Richie said, describing how he saw memories of his wife, children and grandchildren play out like a movie before him.<\/p>\n
He said he blacked out briefly after unbuckling his seatbelt and hitting his head on the overhead baggage compartments below him. When he came to, he smelled gasoline and saw jet fuel streaming down the plane\u2019s windows and pooling outside. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was sure at that point there was no getting off this plane,\u201d he said. \u201cI was sure that was going to be my day.\u201d<\/p>\n
The mental trauma of the crash has followed him since. Richie said he sees a therapist for depression and persistent \u201cdark thoughts.\u201d<\/p>\n
His doctors back home in Cape Coral, Fla., diagnosed him with a traumatic brain injury after the crash, Richie said, on top of injuries to his neck and spine. <\/p>\n
In the days after the crash, Delta offered US$30,000 in compensation to those who were on the plane, saying the money \u201chas no strings attached.\u201d<\/p>\n
But that is not nearly enough, according to passengers. <\/p>\n
A master complaint filed on behalf of all plaintiffs as part of a multidistrict litigation at a U.S. district court in Minnesota alleges that \u201cwrongful acts and omissions\u201d caused damages to passengers that include serious and permanent physical and psychological injuries, economic loss, medical expenses, property damages and the loss of companionship and enjoyment of life. <\/p>\n
The litigation is seeking to hold Delta Airlines and its subsidiary carrier Endeavor Air \u201cjointly and severally liable for the resulting injuries and losses to all affected persons.\u201d<\/p>\n
Erin Applebaum, a New York-based lawyer whose firm is representing 14 Delta passengers including Nelson, said the crash was \u201c100 per cent preventable.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOur contention is that if the pilots had not been landing so fast and so recklessly, that would never have happened,\u201d she alleged.<\/p>\n
Applebaum said the court has ordered the start of mediation, and that the airline has requested to mediate three of her cases, excluding Nelson\u2019s, but she hasn\u2019t yet agreed to proceed. <\/p>\n
She said the case is currently in a \u201cholding pattern\u201d because they are still waiting for the Transportation Safety Board of Canada to determine the cause of the crash. <\/p>\n
\u201cOnce the probable cause report comes out, then we have a better basis to make those liability allegations and move forward with that aspect of the litigation,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Several other lawsuits related to the crash have been filed in U.S. courts.<\/p>\n
Delta Air Lines said it remains \u201cfully engaged\u201d in the crash investigation led by the TSB.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor everyone at Endeavor Air and Delta, nothing is more important than the safety of our customers and our people,\u201d the company said in a statement shared with The Canadian Press. \u201cOut of respect for the integrity of this work that will continue through their final report, Endeavor Air and Delta will refrain from comment.\u201d<\/p>\n
The safety board said last week that its investigation continues and it\u2019s still \u201ctoo early\u201d to draw any conclusions about the cause and contributing factors in the crash.<\/p>\n
The TSB is still working on its final report, and said the work done so far includes a \u201ccomprehensive\u201d metallurgical examination of the plane\u2019s landing gear and wing, as well as an analysis of flight data and cockpit voice recorders. <\/p>\n
The safety board had suggested in a preliminary report last March that the aircraft came down at a high speed and touched down hard enough to break its landing gear, but did not draw any conclusions. <\/p>\n
Richie said he hopes the eventual TSB report will prompt changes to airline safety regulations, so that nothing similar happens again to anyone else. <\/p>\n
He said he hasn\u2019t heard from Delta Air Lines since it offered the lump sum compensation, and he wants an apology for what has been one of the toughest years of his life.<\/p>\n
A year on, Richie said he continues to experience constant back pain, memory loss and difficulty focusing.<\/p>\n
While he was once an athletic person, he said he can no longer walk long distances, let alone go for runs like he used to.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy children and grandchildren live in Kentucky. I used to hop a flight \u2014 an hour and a half \u2014 to see them,\u201d Richie added. \u201cNow it\u2019s a 14-hour drive, which is very painful on me. I\u2019ve only made it once in this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even seeing aircraft fly overhead makes him anxious, he said, as he thinks about the passengers aboard entrusting their lives to the pilots and airlines that are supposed to ensure their safety. <\/p>\n
He doesn\u2019t think he\u2019ll ever get on another plane. <\/p>\n
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Crashed plane of Delta flight 4819 at Toronto Pearson International Airport This image taken from video released by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada on Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2025, shows the crashed plane of Delta flight 4819 at Toronto Pearson International Airport, in Mississauga, Ontario, on Tuesday, Feb. 18. (Transportation Safety Board of Canada via AP) <\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 16, 2026.<\/p>\n
Sharif Hassan and Kathryn Mannie, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aviation consultant Keith Mackey says the initial stages of the investigation reveal mechanical issues along the pilot\u2019s door,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":478828,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[45,49,48,83,84,713,47,11867],"class_list":["post-478827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-disaster","tag-health","tag-justice","tag-national","tag-ontario-quebec"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}