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2 Passengers Remain Hospitalized After Toronto Plane Crash. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired February 18, 2025 - 12:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[12:30:00]

DEBORAH FLINT, PRESIDENT & CEO, TORONOTO PEARSON INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT: -- 974 scheduled flights were canceled on Thursday. 75 of 1,012 scheduled flights were canceled on Friday. 128 of 937 scheduled flights were canceled on Saturday. And 371 of 987 scheduled flights were canceled on Sunday.

Monday was a clear day though. And it was an operational recovery day for Toronto Pearson. With 1,006 scheduled flights. The results yesterday, in due part to the accident, were 462 scheduled flights canceled and 544 flights operated.

Let's now talk about the investigation and what to expect in the next few days as we pivot to this phase. Last night, seven members of the Transportation Safety Board of Canada arrived at Toronto Pearson to begin the investigation. 13 more of those investigators arrived today.

Members of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration are also here on site participating in the investigation. As it is a Mitsubishi aircraft, Mitsubishi will be here on site as well. And Delta Airlines has sent their GO team who are already here on site.

So what does this all mean for operations at Toronto Pearson today and in the days ahead? Our Emergency Operations Center does remain open, though operations on the runways resumed at 5:00 p.m. Eastern time yesterday.

We have been in recovery mode since resuming flights at 5:00 p.m. yesterday, catching up on delayed flights, and that continues into today as well. We are currently without use of our longest east-west and north-south runways. This and ongoing expected additional weather conditions today will affect how fast we recover operations, particularly with departure of aircraft.

We do expect that the investigators on site will be reviewing the aircraft on its current configuration on the runway for the next 48 hours. And we are looking to get to support that investigation and the removal of that aircraft off the runway, at which point we can do our inspections and then return that runway into service.

Toronto Pearson will continue to provide you all with operational updates, but this is now an active investigation time, and you can expect to start hearing more from the investigating authorities about the accident that happened here. We expect that the Transportation Safety Board of Canada will be issuing a statement with more information around that later this afternoon.

In closing, I thank the industry, the community, and all of our employees here and across the sector for all the work that they are doing to support this incident and those affected, and that they do every day. Air travel remains the safest form of transportation.

We are proud of that record here, and at time like these, we're very grateful and thankful of how the community and the industry comes together as one. Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We'll now take a few questions. Folks maybe can come up to the mics if possible, or if there's a mic in the audience. OK.

ALEX CAPRARIELLO, NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, NEWSNATION: Sure. Hi there. Alex Caprariello with NewsNation. A question about the conditions yesterday. Obviously, you just explained the extent of the snowstorms that came over the past few days. Wondering if there's been any developments or any comment about what exactly it was like on the runway in terms of iciness or wind gusts.

Last night we heard the fire chief say that he did not believe that that played a role in this crash at all. Is that still the theory here? And if so, do we have any developments on what caused the crash if it wasn't weather-related?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK.

FLINT: Yes, this would not be a time for us to have theory or to speculate on what caused the crash. So as I shared, you know, we have a number of agencies that are here that are responsible for doing a thorough and full and complete investigation to determine all the causal factors. And we are looking forward to getting those results and to sharing those. And those will be shared very publicly once they are received.

CAPRARIELLO: And I understand that if you don't want to speculate about the crash. But can you tell us then what the condition of the runway was like at that time of the impact? I mean, was it slick? Have your teams been able to determine that?

FLINT: I look forward to sharing all of that information at the proper time. Again, that is all -- those are all the details that are going to be covered during this investigation. And that is active currently.

VJOSA ISAI, REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Hi there. Vjosa Isai from the New York Times. I have one question and a follow-up. Does air traffic control handle CRJs differently than other aircraft in crosswinds?

[12:35:03]

FLINT: The air traffic control is responsible, NAV Canada, for all of the aircraft activity here at Toronto Pearson and in the surrounding areas. They will have to respond differently themselves as to how they manage those aircraft uniquely. ISAI: And how do you decide to pause operations because of wind and who makes that decision?

FLINT: That is a cross-collective decision that is made between NAV Canada and the pilots during live operations. We are not pausing operations. We do have a slowdown in the operations due to two of our runways being closed for operations at this time. And those are the key contributing factors to the delays.

ISAI: Last question. There's no Delta or TSB representatives on the stage with you right now. Are you able to speak to why they're not present?

FLINT: We've been very much in communication with all of those involved. All of the agencies, Delta Airlines and others, we've all had quite extensive communication. They've been in our EOC, our emergency operations center. So the system and the response to the accident is working as planned and going quite well with our partners.

JOHN WAWROW, JOURNALIST, ASSOCIATED PRESS: John Wawrow with the Associated Press. Two questions. One is the two people who remain in the hospital, any timeline on how long they may remain?

FLINT: I do not have that information.

WAWROW: Do you know what condition they're in?

FLINT: What we do know is that, again, 19 of those that were hospitalized are no longer hospitalized. The two that remain, none face life-threatening injuries from what we've been briefed and what Delta Airlines has released as well.

WAWROW: And just finally, Deborah, given what we saw from all the videos that are on social media, and I'm sure what you've seen internally, how -- is it more remarkable that everyone was able to, you, that everyone was able to, you know, survive this incident?

FLINT: There are so many factors that lead us to have gratitude today. Again, I cannot commend enough the crew, the flight attendants, pilots, and our emergency responders for their quick and effective response. It's really, really incredible. And when you see that aircraft, it just makes you really thankful for all the safety checks that go into running this, one of the world's safest air transportation systems.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, we'll take questions now from the first -- for the first responders, please.

MOMIN QURESHI, JOURNALIST, 680 NEWSRADIO: Good morning, Momin Qureshi from 680 NewsRadio. My question really is, last check, the wreckage was still out there on the runway. I just wanted to know if we know how long that will be out there and what kind of impact that's having on service here at the airport.

FLINT: Yes, so as I shared, yes, that the remains of the aircraft will remain on the runway while the investigators are performing their reviews. We expect that that could be about 48 hours. And so until that time, two of our runways will remain closed, and that is affecting the volume of traffic that we're having. So passengers should be looking and working with their airlines, checking our website for information on delays and potential cancellations as well for the next several days.

QURESHI: Just as a follow-up to that, then, I've been upstairs, as many of us have, talking to passengers. And many of them, most of them, all of them really are understanding of the ripple effect but are extremely frustrated by the lack of information or conflicting information.

So just what do you say to your passengers right now who are trying to get themselves on flights to their destinations but are left feeling frustrated by conflicting information or a lack of information?

FLINT: We are here very much at the airport to support and provide passenger care for people that might find themselves here at the airport and have their flights disrupted. So we'll continue to provide that customer care for them. But in the interim, please do check with your airlines, check your website, and check your apps for your most updated flight information.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you. We'll move now to questions to the responders. Thank you.

SHAUNA HUNT, REPORTER, CITYNEWS: Yes, sure. It's Shauna with CityNews. Can you talk a little bit about the response, how long it took fire trucks to get to the plane? And can you talk a little bit about the flame that we saw in the video and the smoke? And, you know, was it easy to put out? And just really take us through the response (ph).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All right, Todd.

CHIEF TODD AITKEN, GREATER TORONTO AIRPORTS AUTHORITY: Thank you for the question. The actual time, it was a very quick response from Toronto Pearson Fire Emergency Services. Upon arrival, the crew did witness spot fires. They were able to quickly knock down the spot fires using the aircraft rescue firefighting apparatus.

Once the fires were knocked down, the crews did make entry and perform primary search and rescue. The passengers were all evacuated, and then they were taken to a secondary location at Station 2 for triage with our mutual aid partners.

[12:40:00]

HUNT: Just a quick follow-up. Can you describe what it was like? Because we've seen videos of the passengers hanging upside down in their seatbelts. Can you describe what it was like to get these people, you know, hanging, cut down and out of the plane?

AITKEN: I believe that most of the passengers self-evacuated at that time. And upon arrival, they were being escorted to a second location.

NATE FOY, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Nate Foy, Fox News. I'm just seeking some clarity from a first responder's perspective on the elements and how they played a role in your efforts yesterday. I know a lot of people are hoping for some clarity on what the fire chief said, and it sounds like you guys won't give us that. But can you tell me what it was like out there on the runway as you were doing your job? Was the runway dry and the wind gusts, how did it impact you?

AITKEN: And like we mentioned, it's very early to make any conclusions. I know I provided a little bit of information yesterday for transparency. Today, now we have an active investigation. Therefore, any of those questions would have to be directed toward Transportation Safety Board.

CARYN LIEBERMAN, SENIOR REPORTER, GLOBAL NEWS: Hi there, Caryn Lieberman with Global News. Besides the chief, I just wondered if any of the other first responders could speak to their own experiences and what you found and how you cared for some of these passengers.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sure. Marc?

DEPUTY CHIEF MARC ANDREWS, PEEL REGIONAL POLICE.: Thank you for the question, Marc Andrews, deputy chief of Peel Regional Police. I'd like to -- before I answer the question, I'd like to say that our thoughts and prayers are with the 76 crew members and four (ph) passengers and their families that were impacted by yesterday's events, which fortunately had the best possible outcome for all of us.

Our response as Peel Regional Police, we're the police jurisdiction. We have a really robust presence here at the airport. We actually have a fully functioning division with 100 officers and civilians located. We have a presence on the public side and the private side.

So we were able to respond in a, you know, very timely fashion along with our first responder partners. The conditions were difficult, but I will say this, that we regularly practice with our partners in fire and EMS and the GTAA and Transport Safety Canada. So we were prepared for this event, as extreme as it was.

And our men and women, not only in policing but across all the first responder services, did a tremendous job. And in my mind, no doubt saved lives. So I'd like to acknowledge that. There was some impact on the police of jurisdiction being ourselves, not only here at the airport, because as you can imagine, we don't have surge capacity to deal with something like this the way they do in the private industry.

So, you know, we had -- at one point we had 50 police officers responding to the circumstances here at the airport and the surrounding environment. What I'd like to do is thank our partners at the OPP, Commissioner Tom Creek and Chief Myron Demkiw, because they supported us through the aftermath of the incident by sending officers to support both of our public divisions, 11 and 12 Division in Mississauga.

You know, all in all, it was a great response by first responders supporting GTAA and our TSB partners. But it's something that we've practiced and we're well prepared for should this happen again going forward. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mississauga Fire and Communications Services received the 911 call. It's called a crash alarm, so we get it directly from Pearson into our communications center. So we had a very quick response. We had six apparatus from Mississauga Fire respond.

It was a combination of aerials, engines and squads. In addition, we sent our command vehicle and also a tanker. We also had an acting platoon chief, a district chief and myself that attended the scene. I took a position within their emergency operations center.

Just to reiterate what Deputy just said. Annually, our firefighters participate in joint training with Pearson Fire at a location called FESTI. It's a training facility.

[12:45:08]

Our primary response is to assist with water supply, search and rescue, rehab and medical support. The Mississauga Fire and Emergency Services and Mississauga Office of Emergency Management participates in two annual emergency exercises that are held at Toronto Pearson International Airport each year, including a high-level tabletop command exercise and a full-scale boots-on-the-ground emergency exercise.

In addition to the exercises conducted each year at Toronto Pearson International Airport, the City of Mississauga conducts its own functional emergency exercise, and we did that in 2021, examining an aircraft accident occurring within the City of Mississauga.

This exercise included partners from various organizations, including those represented in the exercises held here regularly at Pearson. The Mississauga Fire and Emergency Services and OEM provides emergency management training to regional partners from various organizations who may be involved in the response to an aircraft accident, amongst other emergencies.

The Mississauga Office of Emergency Management can also serve as a conduit between the City and the Provincial Emergency Operations Center if provincial-wide coordination for the response and recovery of community impacts during an emergency is required.

During an aircraft accident, the Mississauga Office of Emergency Management can assist in the coordination of providing municipal services if requested by our community partners who may be impacted in the event. This could include transportation like buses, facilities, or heavy equipment.

The City of Mississauga has developed its own Aircraft Accident Emergency Plan, which conforms with and operates in conjunction to the Airport Emergency Plan developed by the Greater Toronto Airport Authority.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thanks. That was a fulsome response.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just also wondered if anyone can speak to the nature of some of the injuries. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you want to speak to some of the nature?

COREY TKATCH, COMMANDER OF OPERATIONS, PEEL REGIONAL PARAMEDIC SERVICES: Good afternoon. My name is Corey Tkatch. I'm a Commander of Operations within Peel Regional Paramedic Services. So upon our arrival of the crash site, our staff were faced with a multitude of different injuries, mainly stemming from back sprains, head injuries, anxiety, some headaches, nausea and vomiting due to the fuel exposure. So those were the common sort of injuries that we had come across.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Any more questions?

MAAN ALHMIDI, REPORTER, CANADIAN PRESS: Maan Alhmidi, Canadian Press. I just want to follow up on this rescue effort. Can you please provide some details on the timeline? How long did you -- I mean, paramedics and firefighters, did it take for them to get to the airplane, and how long did it take for them to evacuate the airplane?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. Todd, do you want to take that?

AITKEN: Yes, the response from Toronto Pearson Fire Emergency Services was minutes. Because there was an active investigation, we won't be able to provide the details, but it was a very quick response from Fire Emergency Services as well as our response partners that just spoke.

ALHMIDI: Can you please also comment on the role that flight attendants played in evacuating the airplane? We saw some videos on social media where like basically doing their job, helping passengers get off the plane. Can you please comment on their role in this?

AITKEN: Sure, absolutely. We train for such events. We're very well prepared and trained. And the firefighters responded textbook. They were able to knock down the fire. They were able to assist the passengers getting off the plane and then performing triage and then response to the hospitals.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you. Next question.

ALEX MILLER, NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, SCRIPPS NEWS: Hi, I'm Alex Miller with Scripps News. I know you can't confirm what you saw on the runway, but can you confirm that the runway have been coded as fives across the board as a wet runway for the pilots, which is a runway with light snow or slush?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) follow the question. Do you want to answer it or do you want to include it together?

[12:50:03]

AITKEN: Like I mentioned earlier, because there was an active investigation, that will have to be directed towards the Transport Safety Board, please.

JESSICA MURPHY, NEWS EDITOR, BBC NEWS: Hi, Jessica Murphy, BBC News. I want to go back to something Mr. Andrews said. You talked about difficult conditions that rescuers faced on the ground. I'm hoping you could go into a bit more detail.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sorry, with who said? Sorry.

MURPHY: BBC.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, sorry --

MURPHY: Peel Regional Police.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Peel Regional Police?

ANDREWS: Thank you for that question. The conditions that I was speaking of is the environmental conditions, the cold, the wind, the fact that, you know, we were still having the occasional snow. But those are conditions, again, that we're used to working in as first responders, and our people, along with the other first responders, did a tremendous job of responding in those conditions. It's part of the environment that we operate in.

MEAGAN FITZPATRICK, NATIONAL NETWORK REPORTER, CBC NEWS: Meagan Fitzpatrick from CBC News. What can you tell us about the child that was airlifted to sick kids? Do we know if the child was on somebody's lap or buckled in? What can you tell us about the nature of their injuries?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No. No, we don't. I'm sorry.

FITZPATRICK: You don't know if the child was on a lap?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We do not know. No, we don't have that -- those details.

FITZPATRICK: Can you give us an age range of the passengers on the plane?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We don't have that either. I would direct that to Delta.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're going to take two more questions.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK.

FITZPATRICK: And just one more. Of the two that are in hospital, is one of them the child?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're not sure either.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have a quick question for fire. Did fire responders fear the spread of the fire? And can you speak to the properties of jet fuel? How flammable is it? How much time did that give you to tame it?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. Did you hear the question?

AITKEN: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. It's on the jet fuel, like --

AITKEN: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- whether they were worried.

AITKEN: Yes. Upon arrival, there was jet fuel and there was flames. We do have specialized aircraft rescue firefighting equipment that carries water, foam, and dry chem, and that it is utilized to smother and cover up the jet fuel to provide mean free egress for the passengers. So we do have the appropriate equipment and the appropriate training to mitigate that emergency.

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: OK, we've been listening to officials in Toronto give as much information as they can, emphasizing over and over again that this is still the beginning of what will be a complicated investigation.

CNN Aviation Correspondent Pete Muntean is back with me. Pete, what are your takeaways from what we did here?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: That so much went right here. You know, it wasn't all that long ago that we were talking about 67 people dead in the Potomac River, and the most severe injuries that were laid out by the first responders here were back sprains, anxiety, nausea, and vomiting, a very different tale, and we could so easily be telling a much worse tale.

What is interesting to me now is also just the textbook response that is described here by the first responders and Toronto Pearson CEO Deborah Flint, that they have trained for this over and over again, not only by the aircraft rescue and firefighting crews that responded within minutes, although we don't have an exact time, but they were there pretty much nearly right away.

But also by the cabin crew, the two flight attendants on board this plane who got these 76 people, this is a full regional jet, out very quickly, not only using one of the exits that's typically used as a means to service the galley in the front of the airplane, but also one of the overwing exits that essentially became an underwing exit because the fuselage was turned upside down.

It's not a very big airplane, a Canadair regional jet like this, and so the passengers essentially had to make their way, and you can see in the video there, by using the overhead bins as a walkway and out into the cold of Toronto Pearson. It was 18 degrees Fahrenheit at the time.

Just imagine the terror there. And we also heard from the airport fire chief, Todd Aitken, that there were some spot fires that they had to put out, some small fires, and you could see the foam and water trucks there, and they were able to spray while they're moving, which is so critical at an airport like this. Pretty incredible.

The other thing that we also heard, and this is something where the officials at the airport are kind of not wanting to touch the third rail here, but they are sort of hinting at it, is that there was an extreme weather event there at Toronto Pearson. And they had on the Thursday and Sunday before this crash on Monday, 50 centimeters of snow, that's about 20 inches, we're talking just under 2 feet.

So they said that was totally abnormal. They would not really touch the questions about the conditions of the runway and the blowing snow at the time, but the video really tells the story.

[12:55:04]

You can see the blowing snow across the runway there, and investigators will of course want to know if that impacted the pilot's ability to see the runway, their depth perception, their ability to flare and round out the airplane at the last minutes -- last seconds to cushion the sink rate and land normally, because the video we keep seeing is of a very hard landing with a lot of force that caused the right wing to shear off and this plane to tumble down the runway.

So much went right when so much could have gone wrong. A real testament to the engineering of the airplane and the training of these crews who practiced for this over and over again. Flight attendants are America's aviation's first responders.

BASH: Yes, they sure are. And I'm so glad you put it that way because it really crystallizes in my mind just as a passenger --

MUNTEAN: Right.

BASH: -- frequent passenger just how important all of these factors are, not the least of which is the training and the expertise of the people who are on board with us.

MUNTEAN: No doubt.

BASH: Thank you so much, Pete.

And thank you for joining Inside Politics today. CNN News Central starts after the break.