Delta Flight from Minneapolis Flips Upside Down in Toronto Crash

Jarring images of a plane flipped upside down, wings broken off, spread on social media after an apparent crash of a Delta regional flight while landing in Toronto (YYZ) Monday afternoon. Yet miraculously, there were no fatalities in the immediate aftermath of the latest troubling accident involving a commercial airline.

The flight in question was Delta 4819, operated by Delta's regional subsidiary Endeavor Air under the banner of Delta Connection, from Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP) to Toronto on Monday. By Monday evening, Delta confirmed that 18 customers were taken to the hospital with injuries but that there were no deaths among the 80 people onboard, which included 76 passengers and four crew members.

ABC News reports that at least three people onboard suffered critical injuries. Everyone is expected to survive, according to the news outlet. On Monday evening, Delta said several passengers had already been released from the hospital.

The cause of the incident was not clear. Tracking data for the flight from FlightRadar24 shows a relatively normal flight to the Toronto airport before it landed around 2:13 p.m. EST. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada will lead an investigation, though U.S. officials representing the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said both agencies were heading to Toronto to assist.

While it may take a week or longer for an investigation to yield any information about what caused the crash, video footage from the scene shows it could have easily been another tragedy. 

Footage captured from a nearby plane clearly shows the Bombardier CRJ-900 landing hard on its right side – perhaps collapsing the landing gear – before rolling, breaking off a wing in a fiery explosion. The fuselage continues sliding down the runway, leaving a plume of black smoke in its wake, its second wing rotating clockwise through the air before it comes to rest down the runway

Photos and video from the aftermath show the Delta Connection jet completely upside down on the tarmac and surrounded by snow, its tail largely severed, and both wings ripped off. Emergency responders were spraying down the jet as passengers exited the upside-down plane. 

Aviation is the safest form of transportation in the world – and it's not even close – and it keeps getting safer. Yet travelers' confidence has been rattled after a handful of recent incidents, including the horrifying mid-air collision of a military helicopter and American Airlines regional flight near the Washington, D.C.-Reagan (DCA) airport, which killed all 67 people onboard the two aircraft.

That was the first crash with fatalities involving a commercial U.S. airliner since 2009.

This is a developing news story, check back for details.