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How Did a Jet Flip Upside Down on a Toronto Runway and Everyone Survive?

A Delta Air Lines plane that crashed at Toronto Pearson International Airport is seen on February 18, 2025 in Toronto, Canada. (Getty Images/AFP)
A Delta Air Lines plane that crashed at Toronto Pearson International Airport is seen on February 18, 2025 in Toronto, Canada. (Getty Images/AFP)
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How Did a Jet Flip Upside Down on a Toronto Runway and Everyone Survive?

A Delta Air Lines plane that crashed at Toronto Pearson International Airport is seen on February 18, 2025 in Toronto, Canada. (Getty Images/AFP)
A Delta Air Lines plane that crashed at Toronto Pearson International Airport is seen on February 18, 2025 in Toronto, Canada. (Getty Images/AFP)

Investigators are probing the causes of an unusual plane crash at Canada's largest airport on Monday, when a regional jet flipped upside down upon landing during windy weather, sending 21 of the 80 people on board to hospital.

Video shows the Delta Air Lines plane belly up and missing its right wing at Toronto's Pearson Airport, and of the crash that involved no fatalities, circulated widely on social media. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada said on Tuesday that parts of the plane -- a Bombardier-made CRJ900 -- separated after impact and the fuselage came to rest slightly off the right side of the runway, upside down, facing the other direction.

The TSB said it is too early to know what happened and why. Here is what we know about this accident and similar crashes.

HOW DOES A PLANE LAND UPSIDE DOWN?

US aviation safety expert Anthony Brickhouse said aircraft are normally designed to land first on the two main landing gear, and then the nose gear. While the cause of the accident is unclear, the type of impact on the runway likely damaged the landing gear, leaving the plane imbalanced.

Brickhouse said that the plane ending up pointing in the opposite direction speaks to the amount of force and speed that led it to change direction.

"With all the forces and everything going on, if that wing is not there to support the aircraft it's going to go over," Brickhouse said. "It's not something that we see regularly, but when structures start failing, they can't do their job and the aircraft is going to react to the different forces on it."

HOW DID EVERYONE SURVIVE?

Passengers say they were hanging upside down in their seats after the crash.

"All of the passengers were wearing the safety belts. This prevented more serious injuries from occurring," said Mitchell Fox, director of the Asia Pacific Center for Aviation Safety.

Airplane seats are designed to withstand the force of 16 times the normal pull of gravity, or 16Gs, in a crash, whereas wings and fuselage are designed to handle 3-5Gs.

"In an impact-survivable crash, it's more important for the seats to hold up, giving passengers the best chance of survival," said Raj Ladani, a program manager for aerospace engineering at Australia's RMIT University. Good evacuation is key to air accident survivability, as witnessed last year when all 379 people escaped a burning Japan Airlines plane after a runway collision.

"The crew did a remarkable job of evacuating all of the passengers expeditiously," Fox said of the Delta crash.

HAS THIS HAPPENED BEFORE?

While rare, there have been cases of large jets flipping over on landing, including three accidents involving McDonnell Douglas' MD-11 model.

In 2009, a FedEx freighter turned over on landing in windy conditions on the runway at Tokyo's Narita airport, killing both pilots. The left wing was broken and separated from the fuselage attaching point and the airplane caught fire.

In 1999, a China Airlines flight inverted at Hong Kong while landing during a typhoon. The plane touched down hard, flipped over and caught fire, killing three of 315 occupants.

In 1997, another FedEx freighter flipped over at Newark in the United States, with no fatalities.

Brickhouse said it is too early to draw any conclusions from these earlier cases, especially as the MD-11 is a three-engine aircraft and the CRJ900 has two engines mounted toward the back of the aircraft, producing different flight dynamics.

HOW WILL THE INVESTIGATION PROCEED?

Unlike other investigations in which parts of the plane have gone missing, and there are mass fatalities, investigators will be able to interview all 76 passengers and four crew.

Investigators have access to the fuselage and wing, which are on the runway, and the black boxes -- the flight data and cockpit voice recorders -- have been sent for analysis.

"This is going to be a textbook investigation," Brickhouse said. "Some accidents, a lot of the pieces of the puzzle are missing. But right now looking at this accident, all the puzzle pieces are there. It's just you piecing them back together at this point."

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North Korea and China to Resume Passenger Train Service After Six-Year Gap

A North Korean flag flutters from a train believed to be carrying North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, as it arrives in Beijing, China, September 2, 2025. (Reuters)
A North Korean flag flutters from a train believed to be carrying North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, as it arrives in Beijing, China, September 2, 2025. (Reuters)
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North Korea and China to Resume Passenger Train Service After Six-Year Gap

A North Korean flag flutters from a train believed to be carrying North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, as it arrives in Beijing, China, September 2, 2025. (Reuters)
A North Korean flag flutters from a train believed to be carrying North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, as it arrives in Beijing, China, September 2, 2025. (Reuters)

South ‌Korea's Unification Ministry said on Tuesday that passenger train services between Pyongyang and Beijing are set to resume this week, marking the end of a six-year suspension caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The resumption restores a critical transport link between North Korea and its primary economic ally, after ‌years of ‌strict border closures that began ‌in ⁠early 2020.

China's state ⁠railway told the Yonhap News Agency that the Pyongyang–Beijing train will begin the round-trip service on March 12, operating four times a week.

Only the last two carriages will ⁠initially carry passengers, mainly diplomats or ‌others on ‌official business, with ticket sales to the general ‌public possible if seats are ‌available, Yonhap quoted a railway official as saying.

North Korea remains closed to most foreign tourism, with limited exceptions largely for ‌Russian tour groups under restricted arrangements, according to travel agencies organizing trips ⁠to ⁠the country.

Before the pandemic, Chinese visitors made up the largest share of foreign tourists to North Korea, the agencies said.

Tour organizers said on Monday that North Korea had cancelled next month's Pyongyang Marathon for unspecified reasons. The race is one of the few events that has been open to international participants in the isolated state.

Varieties

Former Fukushima Worker Devotes Life to Abandoned Pets

This picture taken on March 5, 2026 shows former nuclear plant worker Toru Akama playing with a cat during an interview with AFP at his animal shelter in Namie, Fukushima prefecture. (AFP)
This picture taken on March 5, 2026 shows former nuclear plant worker Toru Akama playing with a cat during an interview with AFP at his animal shelter in Namie, Fukushima prefecture. (AFP)
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Former Fukushima Worker Devotes Life to Abandoned Pets

This picture taken on March 5, 2026 shows former nuclear plant worker Toru Akama playing with a cat during an interview with AFP at his animal shelter in Namie, Fukushima prefecture. (AFP)
This picture taken on March 5, 2026 shows former nuclear plant worker Toru Akama playing with a cat during an interview with AFP at his animal shelter in Namie, Fukushima prefecture. (AFP)

Not far from the Fukushima nuclear disaster site, former plant worker Toru Akama tends to dozens of pets abandoned after the catastrophe 15 years ago, work he sees as part of his quest for redemption.

Meows and barks break the silence of the countryside, once an evacuation zone, as the 63-year-old brings food to the animals left behind when their owners fled the triple disaster of March 11, 2011: earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear accident.

"It's because of this plant, where we worked for years, that these animals ended up like this," Akama told AFP at his home in northern Japan, surrounded by cats.

"They should have been able to go on living their lives as pets, but because of this accident they were abandoned.

"I felt it was my duty to protect them," he said.

Akama will never forget what he saw in the wake of the disaster, caused by Japan's strongest earthquake on record.

The tsunami it unleashed killed or left missing 18,500 people, and a wall of water crashed into the Fukushima nuclear plant on the northeast coast causing a devastating meltdown.

A day later, residents were ordered to evacuate and an unbroken line of cars formed on the national highway that runs past Akama's house.

"Then the dogs started wandering in search of something to eat -- least those that weren't chained up," he recalled.

"There was no one left, just my wife and me handing out food."

-'Outrage'-

Akama then began taking the animals into his home: first 40 dogs, then 50.

A decade and a half later, he has found adoptive families for more than 1,000 animals and continues to take in new pets who have been abandoned for other reasons.

He says he has "felt outrage" at the pet owners, who have sometimes left their animals in front of his house.

Some "are remorseful, but others simply do it because the animals have become a nuisance", he said.

In difficult moments, "of course... people's priority is human beings, but animals are living beings too, members of the family. It's as if people were abandoning their own children".

After the nuclear disaster, some residents had to flee by bus, and animals were not allowed aboard.

"There were elderly people in tears, asking if someone could take their pet," he recalled.

A month after the disaster Akama also had to leave, but he returned every day for his work at the plant and to look after his charges.

"Because they had known hunger, I absolutely wanted to give them a good life. Sometimes we went without ourselves in order to buy them quality food," he said.

-They 'watch over me'-

Over the past 15 years, Akama says he has spent almost all of the compensation he received after the plant accident on the animals, and he continues to cover most of their care and food costs.

"I don't have time to deal with collections or crowdfunding campaigns," he explained, although he has received some donations.

Akama's days are structured around cleaning the cages where new arrivals spend their first days, feeding, walking the dogs, and taking in new residents, leaving him little respite.

"It never stops. To be honest, I feel like my old job was easier," he said.

"But thanks to them I've never fallen ill: they force me to stay active. Maybe it's their way of thanking me, of watching over me in their own way."

At first, he kept the ashes of the deceased animals in his house, but he eventually had to build a grave outside to hold the remains of around 30 dogs and even more cats, beneath the inscription "rest in peace".

Akama's brother took over his subcontracting business for the plant, allowing him to devote himself full time to the 47 cats and seven dogs with whom he currently shares his life.

"If I'm still able to keep going today, it's because I carry within me the distress these animals experienced. That's what keeps me going."

He would nevertheless like to find a successor.

"That's my biggest concern right now, because I too am starting to get older," he said.

"But I'd like to keep going like this until the end."

Varieties

February Fifth Warmest on Record, Extreme Rain in Europe, Says EU Monitor

The sun rises over Panama Bay in Panama City on March 7, 2026. (AFP)
The sun rises over Panama Bay in Panama City on March 7, 2026. (AFP)
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February Fifth Warmest on Record, Extreme Rain in Europe, Says EU Monitor

The sun rises over Panama Bay in Panama City on March 7, 2026. (AFP)
The sun rises over Panama Bay in Panama City on March 7, 2026. (AFP)

The world logged its fifth hottest February on record, with western Europe drenched by extreme rainfall and widespread flooding, the European Union's climate monitor said on Tuesday.

Global temperatures last month were 1.49C above pre-industrial times, defined as the 1850-1900 period before large-scale fossil fuel use drove climate change.

Temperatures and precipitation varied widely in Europe.

The average temperature in Europe was among the three coldest in the past 14 years at -0.07C.

But western, southern and southeast Europe experienced above-average temperatures, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service.

Colder conditions were experienced in northwest Russia, Baltic countries, Finland and its Scandinavian neighbors.

"Wet and dry conditions across the continent showed a pronounced contrast: much of western and southern Europe was wetter than average, whereas the rest of the continent... was mostly drier than average," the service said in its monthly report.

The United States, northeast Canada, the Middle East, Central Asia and east Antarctica had warmer-than-average temperatures.

- Need for global action -

Sea surface temperatures were the second highest for the month of February.

In the Arctic, the average sea ice extent was at its third lowest level for the month at five percent below average.

In the Antarctic, the monthly sea ice extent was close to average for February -- a "sharp contrast to the much below-average" levels observed over the past four years, Copernicus said.

"The extreme events of February 2026 highlight the growing impacts of climate change and the pressing need for global action," said Samantha Burgess, strategic lead for climate at the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, which operates Copernicus.

"Europe experienced stark temperature contrasts," Burgess said.

"Exceptional atmospheric rivers -- narrow bands of very moist air -- brought record rainfall and widespread flooding to western and southern Europe," she said.

Human-driven climate change intensified torrential downpours that killed dozens and forced thousands of people from their homes across Spain, Portugal and Morocco between January and February, according to the World Weather Attribution (WWA) network of climate scientists.