Plane barreled toward runway at ‘high speed’ before crash that left flyers hanging upside down ‘like bats’ as Delta sued
THE Delta Air Lines flight that crash landed belly-up on the tarmac in Toronto was descending at a high rate of speed before suffering a broken landing gear, according to a preliminary report.
The shocking caught-on-camera crash occurred on February 17 as the commercial flight, carrying 80 passengers and crew members, was touching down at Toronto Pearson International Airport in Canada.
Upon making impact with the runway, the main right landing gear broke, the undercarriage folded into a retracted position, and the wing detached, before a "cloud of jet fuel" sparked a fire, a preliminary report by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada read.
The Canadian safety board said a safety warning system went off inside the aircraft about 2.6 seconds before it landed.
The alarm cautioned the pilots they were descending quickly, according to the report.
"The exact sequence of these events is still to be determined by future examination of the fracture surfaces," the report read.
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The report described how the cockpit door was jammed shut, which forced the pilots to climb through an emergency hatch located on the ceiling of the cockpit.
The official cause of the crash has not been determined.
At least 21 people suffered injuries in the jaw-dropping event.
Nine Canadian passengers who were on board the flight have filed a lawsuit against Delta Air Lines and its crew members, whom they claim were "inadequately trained and supervised" by Delta and Endeavor Air.
"The crew failed to observe the most fundamental procedures for a landing approach into [Pearson], failed to appropriately monitor flight conditions on approach, and failed [to] communicate and react in the cockpit to those conditions," the lawsuit read, according to CBC News.
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