On February 17, 2025, we saw a shocking accident, whereby a Delta Connection CRJ-900 (operated by Endeavor Air) crashed while landing at Toronto Pearson Airport (YYZ). The plane flipped over on landing and lost a wing, in what can only be described as a horrifying accident.
Continue reading: Delta CRJ-900 Accident In Toronto: Preliminary Report Published
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
EVERYTHING ASIDE, that FO should not have been pilot flying in those conditions, especially with the lower hours she had. This should have been a condition in which the captain lands the aircraft.
Maybe correct--especially in hind sight. But can you imagine the potential damage to the captain's career if he had decided to take over from the FO, a female, because he thought she wasn't capable of safely landing the plane. lf the FO felt slighted, all she would have to do is file a complaint that the captain discriminated against her because she was a female, and his career would probably be history.
Commercial pilots fly an average of 700-1000 hours a year. After 18 years, this captain should have had between 12 to 15 thousand flight hours. Instead he had a little more than twice the flying hours of his trainee, who in turn did not even have the minimum of 1500 hours required. How come no one at Delta/Endeavor saw this as a problem?
honestly, not much more is known than observers picked up after the accident.
Weather was clearly a factor. The changing winds and the lack of stability in the final moments of the flight is significant.
What is not known is the conditions for the plane from 30 seconds to 5 seconds before impact when there might have been a chance to do something.
I would suspect that many airlines are evaluating the conditions under which younger pilots should land. IF there are changes, that has to be driven by some corporate standards and not a last minute decision by a captain based on his perceived sense of whether the FO can handle the landing.
If you don't trust someone to land in any conditions where the runway is still open they shouldn't be in cockpit at all
So is the main concern that the vertical rate of descent was too high? It seems it ended up being nearly twice what was when the plane was at 150 feet (around 1100 ft/min vs. 673 ft/min - or in terms most of us are more familiar with, 12.5 miles per hour vs 7.7 mph). Doesn't seem like such a huge difference, but maybe from an aircraft structure perspective, the difference between hitting the ground at 12.5 vs 7.7 mph is enormous?
Prior to the 1970s, every single US airline crash was piloted by a white male. Do we attribute the root cause to white males? But, if it were someone else, predisposed individuals would be quick to say "ah ha!" Intellectual honesty is beyond them.
The force of impact on the right main gear was 3 Gs. Separately, when an aircraft is within a wingspan of the runway, the "ground effect" produces a cushion if air and slows the rate of descent. The fact that the rate was still 1100 fps is notable.
No one is saying white male pilots don't crash planes or are superior aviators to minority pilots. Yours is a classical straw man argument. The issue is whether gender was a criteria in the hiring of this pilot to the detriment of her flying skills. Stated otherwise, if aviators with greater flying skills but who lacked the preferred/protected gender were were passed over in the selection process.
Lucky, I love how you mention DEI in your posts when relevant in a very objective way. You neither downplay issues or generalize them (I.e. „Of course you must be stupid to think it was DEI!“) but just mention the facts and your honest and relatable opinion. In the news we usually have super polarized opinions on all sides making it hard to understand issues without bias.
Seems odd that all that damage to the gear happened and the wing root fractured with only a 3g impact. Even the seats are certified for a 16g impact. I’m guessing there is more to that story.
A sink rate warning while very close to or over the runway, coupled with strong gusty winds does not mean you continue and try to save the landing. It means you go around.
I don't think the point the OP is making is that the captain should take over because she is a (relatively) inexperienced female FO.
But that captain should've taken over because it was an inexperienced FO, regardless of gender, given the weather conditions on approach.
And, the immediate assertion by some is that it was the case. Embedded in some people's thinking is that someone who isn't white or male is de facto less qualified. If the FO was a white male, no one would be asking whether he got the job over a more qualified black guy or woman. Yet, *that* prejudice existed for decades and was just fine. I'm old enough to have seen it and experienced it first hand.
I am in agreement that the best qualified person gets the job. Without exception. It is the conclusory position of some that the person *was not* the best qualified . . . the person *was* a DEI hire . . . is to what I take exception.
@Regis
The entire reason people argue that strawman is because DEI itself is a strawman. Nobody, NOBODY was hiring people solely based on skin color or gender. That's the right-wing strawman, and pointing out that it was white males crashing all the planes prior to 1990 is intentionally done to show how dumb the DEI claims are.
Fact is crap happens no matter your race, gender, or background. People are fallible, and even when somebody makes all the correct decisions based on what they know they can still be victim of circumstances beyond their control. That's life. But across the past two decades we've never seen a US aviation accident caused by somebody in a cockpit who didn't meet the qualifications to be a pilot or FO to begin with. Because US airlines are NOT putting anyone in a cockpit if they aren't qualified.
You have to get experience in order to have experience but airlines do require captains to land in specific situations and/or depending on FO experience.
Your point is meaningless and the nature of aircraft and related systems in those days was completely different meaning there were causes for aircraft crashes which no longer operate today.
There were no electronic tickets-do you think that could have been a cause?
Human pilots are obsolete. Time to remove them from the controls.
Dinosaurs will continue to hate this statement. Many don't even realize they're dinosaurs.
But all you did was proving the point, regardless of whose fault. (except nature)
"It means you go around."
"Four seconds before touchdown,"
"rate of descent increased from 672 feet per minute to 1,114 feet per minute"
"Three seconds before touchdown,"
"(EGPWS) had a “sink rate” alert,"
No humans can possibly react to any alert in that given time frame.
It took the computer less than a second to issue the alert.
That's probably an eternity for the machine to react with decisions such as "go around" before "si.." is even audible. Definitely before the human brain can process the word "sink".
I"m not a pilot but after reading this prelim report the first question that came to mind was why didn't they go around and try again. With the increasing bank angle why not simply abort the landing and try an another attempt.
Due to the conditions and steep descent rate, a go round should have occurred.
Concerning that the gear fractured from only 3G.
Aren't pilots trained to be several steps ahead of the aircraft. They need to feel and know what the aircraft is doing so they can respond quickly.
Of course three seconds before touchdown isn't enough time for a human to react and it isn't enough time for the engines to spool up to takeoff power. What I'm wondering is how did it get to that point, how is it neither pilot realized they were essentially not in total control of the aircraft earlier and initiate a go around?. What was happening on the flight deck what decisions were made/discussed between the 14 second mark and the 3 second mark.
"Qualified" is a relative assessment - It follows the old adage "What do you call a "C" average medical school graduate that passes the medical board exams? Doctor!. But maybe not the one you want operating on you. Also comparing aviation safety pre-1990 to today is ridiculous. I don't disagree that DEI may have had nothing to do with the FO's hiring but, when airlines like United make statements like the priority in hiring will be DEI based, DEI will question the skills if the new hire regardless of their qualifications.
"aircraft structure perspective, the difference between hitting the ground at 12.5 vs 7.7 mph is enormous?"
Two problems with your statement.
1. converting fpm to mph. That's not a good measurement unit.
At 150 feet 12.5 mph. How long does it take you calculate time before 'hitting the ground'.
That's less than 8 seconds to impact, not factoring the rate is increasing exponentially too. I'm sure it took you more that 8 seconds to figure that our from mph.
2. And this is really the biggest issue. The underlying here is a lot of people seem to never understand anything from high school. Herein, Newton's 2nd law.
You completely ignore the mass of the plane.
Simplifying things without using too realistic physics but I hope you get the picture.
A paper airplane hitting you at 12 mph would be annoying.
A car hitting you at 12 mph would probably injure you.
An A380 hitting you at 12 mph would easily crush you dead.
It's rate of descent was appropriate at 4s before touchown. It then doubled in the last 4s. The tilt to the right only occurred in the last 3s. Seems a lot more change than 1 would expect from pilot action.
The descent speed was fine til the last 4 s. Is there enough time to initiate a go around when within 2 s of the ground.
There has to be a minimum time to be able to do a go around. And eveyry thing was normal til less than 4s til touchdown.
Two part answer. But both points out to the public being too fixated by the flying hours and missing the bigger picture. As seen in the last FAA leadership blog post.
1. The captain. Does 15k hours and 3.5k makes a 'significant' difference?
A simple counter argument is cars and DMVs. Sure an 18 year old would be more reckless than 30. But would being 50 makes you drive much safer than 30?
Or even at 30, driving 30k miles per year much safer than driving 10k miles?
2. The FO. There are exceptions to 1500 hour rule. I'm sure no one broke this basic rule and allow an unqualified person flying.
There is much more to the story and physics than simply a '3g impact'.
A free falling sky diver without the parachutes will hit the ground at 'only' 1g impact.
G doesn't measure the impact devastation.
Wait till the full investigation report to see.
But an unpredictable sudden shift in forces of nature is possible. And yes with mechanical limitations of the engine even a computer might not be able to recover from this in 3 seconds.
But if humans could notice something 14 seconds before and prevent it, computers would notice and react on it too.
Due to the wind, the PF pilot flying, reduced thrust to maintain her approach speed. Having more experience would have taught the PF, to ignore transient fluctuations in airspeed due to the gusts.
The reduction in thrust, which wasn’t corrected, caused the increase in descent rate, to maintain the approach speed! The woefully inexperienced captain should have corrected the situation immediately. However he’s so used to sitting in the sim, watching poor performances and later debriefing it, or putting the sim on freeze he was doomed to not intercede when he should have.
Flying with sim jockeys always made me more alert to closely monitor them. I’ve seen some dumbfuckery with those types.
Throttles were at 43 percent when the alert sounded. Fan engines could not spin up in three second. You're correct.
Wonder if the NTSB will make any connection between this incident and the recent Endeavor wing-tip scrap @ LGA .... Speculation, but may be indicative of broader training/safety/corporate cultural issues with the carrier....
Bingo. I knew the first female USAF test pilot. There were some studs who simply couldn't accept that she was a better stick than they were. Yeager rejected the first black candidate to be a test pilot based on qualifications not because of race. The system works. As Mitch McConnell said, unsuccessful people need an excuse why they're not successful, they've been cheated.
@Eskimo, no need for the snark, I understand F=ma and p=mv perfectly well. Yes, an A380 running into you at 12 mph would be fatal - to YOU, but not to the plane. That is what I'm getting at. Say you picked up an airplane and dropped it on the ground such that the velocity at the time it hits is 12 mph. Would that really be enough to damage the landing gear such as seen with the CRJ, or is the landing gear designed to withstand such forces? It seems they are designed to land at around 8 mph of vertical speed, as the 673 ft/min descent rate was apparently normal or close to it. Is 12 or 13 mph really that different from 8 mph?
And PamAm was the finest in the world at smashing up airliners during that time because they allowed an "asshole" pilot culture.
CRM exists for a reason, and it's because of the dysfunction at PamAm (with all their white male pilots) during the early jet age.
You have good pilots, bad pilots, and would-be good pilots who crashed because they couldn't delegate duties.
There have been a lot of firings in the aviation safety divisions of the government under this administration
No way in hell I trust that clown in the video. We all know DEI was the main issue here. The pilot flying the plane was NOT qualified, neither was the simulator pilot... Shame on Delta and TIM DUNN for being a little fanboy of them.
The "normal" descent rate is somewhere around 700 fpm, and they flare right before landing to dissipate that vertical kinetic energy.
This plane hit at almost twice the normal descent rate with no flare. The impact force is probably 6-8 times (me spitballing here) what you'd see with a normal landing, and one landing gear leg took the entire hit.
I'm not surprised the gear broke. They'll have to look into why the wing spar broke (the MD-11 is vulnerable to having the landing gear driven through the wing spar), but in theory that should have been dealt with on future certifications (which should include the CRJ-900).
It looks like what happened was the same thing you saw with Delta 191 back in 1985.
In response to a transient wind gust that gave the plane higher than expected airspeed, the pilot flying pulled the throttles back to maintain the "target" airspeed.
It was only a transient gust though (or the start of windshear). Once it disappeared, the plane didn't have enough energy to continue flying safely, so it sank (very quickly) to the ground.
Honestly, an FO with around ~500hr is hardly junior. Considering at 950hr they are qualified to upgrade. That being said, no two FOs are the same. I’ve seen 500hr FOs that are ready to be Captains and some that are hardly close. Time isn’t always a great indicator of experience/skill (that goes for those with low time and high time)
Have you flown a jet? Writing this after just landing one in conditions worse than described in this accident. I turn auto throttles off during these types of conditions (in this case CRJ doesn’t have them anyways) because a computer doesn’t “feel” sink, performance increases/decreases, or predict general handling based on conditions. The only thing a computer has over this pilot is it would’ve went around given the parameters. Don’t let one incident report generalize your entire take on piloting, especially when flights land in conditions way worse than this flight on an hourly basis. We have no issue calling go arounds when needed, reacting to conditions, etc.
The captain is the captain. If I ever feel I need to take control of the aircraft I would and I have absolutely 0% concern that I’d ever be faulted for discrimination. The union and even company would never question me on that. It would have to be blatant discrimination.
In response to Emil’s comment, the conditions were not too much for an FO (in most cases). Most FOs are fairly seasoned at 500hrs and while I wouldn’t say that’s a super experienced FO, it’s hardly a new FO. Everything is a case by basis situation though of course. There are 200hr FOs that I’d trust to land in a 38kt direct crosswind. There are some 600hr FOs I would not. I had a 400hr FO land today in a direct crosswind gusting 32 (worse than this accident) with LLWS advisories, perfect approach/landing. It’s airmanship.
Eskimo, this is the most inaccurate physics statement I have seen outside of satire.
The planes experienced 3g UPWARD acceleration. A free falling object accelerates at less than 1g DOWNWARD due to air resistance. At impact, the free falling object experiences a huge spike of UPWARD acceleration, the magnitude of which depends on its elasticity and the elasticity of the ground material
Spoken like someone who doesn't know what they're talking about. Your comments are stupidly inaccurate.
Prior to the 1970s the technology wasn't there like it is today. Read a book Holy cow.
@Dusty - the most sensible comment I have seen on this topic.
One perception issue may be that for many high profile appointments, (NED, politicial etc), and for run-of-the-mill jobs, "qualified" is often used to mean being a member of a family/clique/minority.
So it would be good to flesh out the definition here to "have had to take and pass relevant exams"
Prompts some interesting thoughts:
1) Does being a simulator instructor carry a risk of becoming desensitized because it's part of normal operations to sometimes let a trainee 'crash' (otherwise trainees would not get the learning benefit) and thus get out of the habit of intervening? Or
2) Are trainees, however inexperienced, very alert when in a simulator and so less likely to fail to cope with challenging conditions, thus adjusting the instructors assessment of where the appropriate border for intervention is?
@jcll
There are some sectors of life where that sort of thing does happen.
But does it ever happen in aviation?
The transparency of objective numerical information such as flying hours is one defence against it.
DEI is corrosive.
When people see that some people in a class are able to skip the line, or receive a boost, they assume no member of that class earned their spot.
It's insulting to most members of that class who earned their spot.
DEI's primary intent is to sow conflict between classes, but the side effect is slandering every member of the preferred class.
@Richard Qualified may be relative for Trump's cabinet positions, but not for airlines given that the standards have not changed for well over a decade. So if DEI is why planes are crashing now, why weren't they crashing in 2010 when all these supposedly "less qualified but still qualified" pilots began entering the workforce? The answer is none of those pilots, and none of the pilots flying for US airlines today, are unqualified for the job.
RE: United, you're talking about their in-house aviation schooling program admissions, not their general hiring program. Ben even linked the article where he mentions it, but once again for the slow people in the back: https://onemileatatime.com/insights/airline-pilots-dei/
Yes, Aviate used DEI to determine WHO ATTENDS. It did not use DEI to determine WHO GRADUATES, nor did it guarantee you a job as a pilot. The entire point of programs like this, and the FAA psych test changes, was to broaden the hiring pool away from middle class white males with the money to afford this kind of education on their own, because that demographic alone cannot supply the amount of pilots the industry demands today. Especially not after record numbers of senior pilots took retirement deals in 2020 and aren't coming back.
And some people default to the conclusion that a person who is not a white male is not qualified, received a job unfairly, and cheating a white male out of a job.
"DEI is corrosive."
Yes, to White conservatives' brains.
Because they've completely lost their ability to effectively analyze, after all this D.E.I. nonsense. No one in a commercial pilot's seat was handed "their spot," they ALL earned it. No one is exempting women and people of color, from the same testing, evaluation, and requirements as anyone else. How f#cking stupid do you have to be, to not comprehend that?
"If you don't trust someone to land in any conditions where the runway is still open they shouldn't be in cockpit at all"
Blanket statement that doesn't comport to industry ops.
There are plenty of airlines who, for given airports (like Kai Tak when it was around, or Paro's airport today) require a Captain to land, even in typical conditions, outside of an emergency.
@Snic/Jack, is Eskimo always this delusional? He/she/they/them (@Eskimo, please tell us your pronouns) seem like a very upset individual, on a personal crusade, hell bent to prove the world wrong, and themselves right.
As a retired airline pilot(747,DC-10,757, 727), I completely agree with your post.
In the end they let the airplane fly them, instead of them flying the airplane.
Of course we still have to wait for the full safety board result.
A minor coincidence-the very experienced PF captain of the KLM 747 which collided with the Pan Am 747 on the runway in Tenerife was also primarily a simulator instructor having spent most of the preceding weeks training and that charter trip was his first line flight following a considerable break.
Canadian investigators did a thorough job on the AF Airbus landing crash at Toronto some years ago so their final report will be interesting and likely highlight training issues.