The aircraft model that crash-landed in Toronto has been involved in more than 100 accidents since 2005.
The Canadian-built Bombardier CRJ-900 has never had a fatal incident since its 2001 launch but is said to be tricky to land, according to aviation experts.
At least 18 people were injured on Monday when the Delta flight from Minneapolis, operated by subsidiary Endeavor Air, crash landed at Toronto’s Pearson airport amid high winds.
Snow blown by winds gusting to 40 mph swirled when the flight carrying 76 passengers and four crew attempted to land.
Communications between the tower and pilot were normal on approach and it’s not clear what went so drastically wrong when the plane touched down.
It was the latest of scores of accidents – at least 118 since 2005 – involving the CRJ-900 plane. However, most of the incidents did not cause injuries and were not due to mechanical malfunctions, but other factors such as bird strikes, ground conditions or pilot errors.
According to data compiled by the Aviation Safety Network, the Bombardier CRJ-900 has been involved in 110 incidents over the last 24 years. There were 18 incidents in 2024 and 20 in 2023.
In December, 2024, an Air Canada flight what departed from St. John’s International Airport in Newfoundland skidded down the runway at the Halifax Stanfield International Airport in Nova Scotia.
Airline officials said the hard landing was due to a ‘suspected landing gear issue.’
The Bombardier CRJ-900 has seen over 100 incidents since its 2001 launch, but none of them have been fatal. A Delta plane is seen in Toronto on Monday after it crash-landed
A Rwandair Canadair CRJ-900, with 60 people on board, veered right off the runway at the Uganda airport in April, 2022
A CRJ900 made an emergency landing in 2016 after it was struck by a bird that shattered the cockpit windshield in 2016
‘The plane shook quite a bit and we started seeing fire on the left side of the plane and smoke started coming in the windows,’ passenger Nikki Valentine told CBC News.
The most serious incidents with the plane appear to be related to landing, though the aircraft has never ended upside-down as it did during Monday’s crash-landing in Toronto.
In 2023, a ValueJet suffered a runway excursion in Nigeria after landing at the Port Harcourt Airport. Airline officials said it was due ‘to algae on the taxi-way which made it unable to maintain the center line.’
In April, 2022, a Canadair CRJ-900 operated by Rwandair with 60 passengers onboard was unable to stop within the runway limits and ended up on the grass at the Entebbe Airport in Uganda.
In September, 2001, two crew members aboard a Jazz airlines CRJ900 traveling from Edmonton to Vancouver were injured in another hard landing.
Canada’s safety board said the pilots had been unable to start the auxiliary power unit before the dangerous landing, according to Flight Global.
Canadian authorities on Monday held two brief news conferences but provided no details on the crash. Video posted to social media showed the aftermath with the CRJ-900LR overturned, the fuselage seemingly intact and firefighters dousing what was left of the fire as passengers climbed out and walked across the tarmac.
John Cox, CEO of aviation safety consulting firm Safety Operating Systems, told the Associated Press that the CRJ-900 is a proven aircraft that’s been in service for decades and does a good job of handling inclement weather.
In 2023, a ValueJet suffered a runway excursion in Nigeria after landing at the Port Harcourt Airport. Airline officials said it was due ‘to algae on the taxi-way which made it unable to maintain the center line’
According to data compiled by the Aviation Safety Network, the Bombardier CRJ900 has been involved in 110 incidents over the last 24 years
He said it’s unusual for a plane to end up on its roof.
‘We’ve seen a couple of cases of takeoffs where airplanes have ended up inverted, but it’s pretty rare,’ Cox said.
The CRJ-900, a popular regional jet, was developed by Canadian aerospace company Bombardier. It’s in the same family of aircraft as the CRJ-700, the type of plane involved in the midair collision near Reagan National Airport on January 29.
Among the questions that need to be answered, Cox said, is why the crashed plane was missing its right wing.
‘If one wing is missing, it’s going to have a tendency to roll over,’ he said. ‘Those are going to be central questions as to what happened to the wing and the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder. They will be found, if not today, tomorrow, and the Transportation Safety Board of Canada will read them out and they will have a very good understanding of what actually occurred here.’
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement that the Transportation Safety Board of Canada would head up the investigation and provide any updates. The NTSB in the U.S. said it was sending a team to assist in the Canadian investigation.
The most serious incidents with the plane appear to be related to landing, though the aircraft has never ended upside-down as it did during Monday’s crash-landing in Toronto
Delta CEO Ed Bastian said in a statement that ‘the hearts of the entire global Delta family are with those affected.’
Toronto Pearson Fire Chief Todd Aitken said 18 passengers were taken to the hospital. Earlier in the day, Ornge air ambulance said it was transporting one pediatric patient to Toronto’s SickKids hospital and two injured adults to other hospitals in the city.
The crash was the fourth major aviation accident in North America in the past three weeks.
A commercial jetliner and an Army helicopter collided near Reagan National Airport in Washington, DC, on January 29, killing 67 people.
A medical transportation plane crashed in Philadelphia on January 31, killing the six people on board and another person on the ground.
And on February 6, 10 people were killed in a plane crash in Alaska.