Some more insight is now available into what may have led a Delta plane to flip over upon landing last month in Toronto, via a preliminary report released Thursday by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada. NBC News notes that although the report didn't pin down a definitive cause for the Feb. 17 crash at Pearson Airport, it did find that the plane carrying 80 people from Minneapolis had descended at a high rate of speed. According to the TSB, the Bombardier CRJ-900's alert system indicated the aircraft had been traveling at 155mph just three seconds or so before it touched down, the AP reports.
Per the New York Times, the plane was dropping at 1,100 feet per minute at that point— "nearly twice the rate that qualifies as a 'hard landing,'" according to flight operations protocol at Endeavor Air, the Delta subsidiary that was operating the plane. Then, "the aircraft impacted the runway, the right wing detached, and a fire ensued," right before the plane overturned and slid to a stop on the runway, the report notes, per NBC. At least 21 people were injured, two seriously, though all who were hospitalized were released just a few days after the crash.
"It was descending much too fast," Jeff Guzzetti, an ex-US accident investigator for the FAA and National Transportation Safety Board, tells the Times. "It's possible that the rate of descent was so great that it exceeded the design stress limits of that landing gear," which saw a piece break off on the plane's right side upon landing.
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Still, the investigation continues. "Accident and incidents rarely stem from a single cause," notes Yoan Marier, the Canada TSB's chair. "They're often the result of multiple complex, interconnected factors, many extending beyond the aircraft and its operation to wider systemic issues." In a Thursday statement on behalf of itself and Endeavor, Delta said that it wouldn't be commenting "out of respect for the integrity of this work that will continue through [the TSB's] final report." (More plane crash stories.)
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