Delta Air Lines offers $30K to each passenger on crash-landed Toronto flight

Delta Air Lines is offering to pay $30,000 to each passenger of Delta Connection Flight 4819, which crashed while landing at Toronto Pearson International Airport on Monday afternoon.

The Atlanta-based airline confirmed the amount Wednesday afternoon. Spokesperson Morgan Durrant said in an email the Delta Care Team is telling customers the money is a gesture that comes with “no strings attached and does not impact rights.”

If every one of the 76 passengers took the money, that would stack up to about $2.3 million.

CEO Ed Bastian earlier Wednesday defended its pilots in an interview on “CBS Mornings,” saying there is “one level of safety at Delta” among its mainline and regional pilots.

“All these pilots train for these conditions. They fly under all kinds of conditions at all of the airports in which we operate. So, no, there’s nothing specific with respect to experience that I’d look to,” Bastian said.

On Monday, Flight 4819 took off from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP) around 11:34 a.m. with the maximum 76 passengers and four crew members aboard. Endeavor Air, a Minneapolis-based subsidiary of Atlanta-based Delta that flies regional routes, operated the aircraft.

Aviation experts who spoke to the Minnesota Star Tribune observed a hard landing as the right wing touched the ground and separated from the plane. Along the runway, the aircraft — a Bombardier CRJ-900 — lost its tail and saw heavy damage to its other wing as flames and smoke roared out. Videos of the aftermath shared on social media showed passengers hanging upside down and being rushed out of the wreckage.

A few Minnesotans aboard the plane at the time have come forward to describe in harrowing accounts how the plane suddenly turned on its head.

Given the ongoing investigation, Bastian on Wednesday noted his comments would be limited on the crash. Although the footage of the terrified passengers and wreck was “horrifying,” Bastian described the outcome — all passengers and crew escaping without serious injury — as a testament to the safety of the aircraft and the training of its operators.

Bastian heralded the work of the Endeavor crew members, saying they “performed heroically but also as expected.”

“This is what we train for,” he said. “We train for this continuously.”

Of the 21 passengers taken to the hospital Monday, all but one had been released as of Wednesday morning, according to Delta.

In a public statement Wednesday, Delta reported continued support for passengers and employees affected by the crash. The process of recovering personal items from the aircraft could potentially last weeks, according to the company.

Maintenance teams were in place to remove the plane from the runway upon receiving necessary safety clearance, the airline said.

Authorities with the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) are investigating the crash. Providing support are the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration, Delta and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which owns the Bombardier jet program.

TSB Senior Investigator Ken Webster, speaking from beside the wrecked plane late Tuesday afternoon, said a team of more than 20 was conducting interviews and examining the wreckage. Devices containing the flight data and cockpit recordings were recovered and sent off for lab analysis.

As with other official statements over the previous two days, Webster said the cause is still under investigation and offered no reasons why the plane could have wrecked.

Deborah Flint, president and CEO of the Greater Toronto Airports Authority, said the conditions Monday were clearer after a record snowfall at the airport over the weekend. She said operations would be affected by the crash through at least Thursday as investigators examined the site conditions and safety inspectors cleared the runway to take landings again.

The official cause of the crash is likely to remain unknown for some time. The TSB investigates transportation disasters for several months, in some cases closer to two years, before findings become public.

Meanwhile, aviation experts weighing in with limited data and access observed some signs of trouble in the landing and navigation of challenging weather conditions. According to AccuWeather, there were wind gusts up to 40 mph with chances of snowfall at Toronto Pearson on Monday.

John Goglia, a former member of the National Transportation Safety Board, said the pilot was about 1,300 feet down the runway and the videos showed no “flare” maneuver to slow down just before the plane landed.

“It looks like it may be in the cockpit,” Goglia said of the possible cause of the crash.

Goglia also raised the possibility of a strong crosswind that could have put the landing gear out of line with the runway and broken it.

“It’s not clear. You can’t tell from the pictures, the videos, any of them that are out there,” Goglia said.

Les Abend, a retired American Airlines pilot, said the plane appeared to drop fast and land in a crab — pilot lingo for positioning the airplane to account for crosswinds that threaten to take it off course. It takes a seasoned pilot to reposition at the correct moment, Abend said.

“You want that airplane to go straight down that runway,” Abend said. “So, you have to take out that crab at the last minute. And what happens is you end up in a situation where the airplane loses lift because of what you’re doing.”

J.F. Joseph of Joseph Aviation Consulting said: “Maneuvering crosswinds can be challenging.”

“No two crosswinds are alike; they are dynamic,” he said. “That presents additional challenges to the pilot.”

Most Twin Cities residents know Delta. But when buying tickets for shorter trips, often customers fly Endeavor, which carries the Delta branding but holds its own separate license to fly.

Endeavor has about 5,000 employees — including 1,500 pilots and 1,600 flight attendants — and operates a fleet of about 130 jets, according to the company.

It claims to have the world’s largest fleet of CRJ-900 planes, which make up all but nine of its jets. The regional airline runs 268 routes, flying to destinations across the eastern half of the U.S. and a few international destinations.

Across the country, about 31% of all flights were performed by regional carriers like Endeavor, according to the most recent annual report by the Regional Airline Association, a trade group.

Those carriers are known within the aviation community as a place for advancement. Commercial pilots often get their first experience flying for regional carriers before getting hired at legacy carriers.

All commercial airline pilots face the same stringent safety requirements outlined by the FAA, which include a minimum of 750 total flight hours for pilots coming from the military, said Chad Kendall, a professor and flight instructor at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Those coming from a college program must log 1,000 hours and those with private training need 1,500.

Colgan Air Flight 3407 in 2009 marked the last major commercial passenger jet crash in the U.S. prior to last month’s air disaster in Washington, D.C., which left 67 dead. The FAA increased pilot training standards in response to safety concerns that were last implemented in 2011.

Of the crash in Toronto, Kendall said he expects the TSB will look at factors including human error, mechanical failure and weather conditions on the runway.

“There’s things that we don’t know yet, and that’s what the investigation is going to uncover,” Kendall said.