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On Monday, 80 people – 76 passengers and four crew members – all miraculously survived being on board Delta Connection Flight 4819 while it crashed and flipped over on its roof at Toronto Pearson Airport. Two of those passengers, John Nelson and Pete Koukov, have now shared what they experienced during the harrowing crash landing. Both men also recorded video of the incident and its aftermath.
“It was a typical flight from Minneapolis to Toronto,” John Nelson told CNN on Tuesday. “And we were coming in, and I did notice that, like, the winds were super gusty. The snow, had kind of blown over the runways. And so coming in and just, it was routine, but like, it was noticeable that the runways were kind of in a weird condition.
“And when we hit, it was just a super hard, like, hit the ground and the plane went sideways and I believe, we skidded, like, on our side and then flipped over on our back where we, ended up.
“There was like a big fireball on the left side of the plane. And when we got finished, it was, I was upside down. Everybody else was there as well. Thankfully everybody was okay. But we tried to get out of there as quickly as possible. And then shortly thereafter, I got done filming the video there was another explosion, but luckily the firefighters got out of there.”
Nelson, who was seated just in front of one of the wings, said he didn’t see the wing get ripped off the plane. “By that point, we were being tossed around. I was just trying to hold on to everything at that point,” he said.
As for what it felt like as the Delta plane crashed, Nelson described there being a “super loud bang kind of thing” happening, “and then everything just goes literally sideways. And it happened so fast and I just remember, like, kind of pulling myself in and trying not to hit my head against anything.”
He added that the experience was like an “emotional roller coaster” and he is still feeling stressed and shaky. “It’s amazing that we’re still here,” he said.
Another passenger who survived the crash, Pete Koukov, recorded video from inside the plane and spoke to Today about his version of the harrowing experience.
“It’s been an interesting last 24 hours for sure,” he said. “Right when, to be honest, I didn’t really notice anything wrong until the moment we hit the ground. Other people were saying they might have. I’m not really sure what. But for me, it was just kind of like the wheel touched down and then all of a sudden I was in the window seat on the looker’s left side.
“And then all of a sudden, we’re just, I just remember being fully sideways, and I was looking down and just seeing like sparks and flames and whatever was grinding against the ground. And then, yeah, it happened pretty dang quick and we were just upside down hanging from our seat belts.”
Koukov said it appeared as if everyone on the Delta flight was wearing their seat belts and hanging upside down when the plane came to a stop. He added that people were frantic at first, but were still able to exit the plane in a rather orderly fashion. (Listen to air traffic control audio around the moments of the crash here.)
“It didn’t seem too insane once like the plane had stopped and everyone realized for the most part they were okay because no one was seriously injured,” he said.