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TORONTO — As his plane descended in Toronto, John Nelson looked out the window to get a view of the city and felt the aircraft was coming down at an abnormally high speed. Moments later, the plane hit the ground so hard that it broke the landing gear, slid, flipped and burst into flames on the runway at Pearson airport.
“It was like being in a washer,” Nelson said in an interview, describing how the plane flipped over in the fiery crash one year ago.
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“When we finally came to a stop … we were upside down, there was jet fuel smell. There was fire.”
He remembers crashing onto the plane’s ceiling after unbuckling his seatbelt.
Miraculously, all 76 passengers and four crew members survived when Delta Air Lines Flight 4819 from Minneapolis, operated by subsidiary Endeavor Air, crashed on Feb. 17, 2025. Though most escaped unharmed, 21 people on board were taken to hospital.
Nelson, a father of two who lives in Minnesota, said he’s still reeling.
The crash has left him with injuries that include a torn retina, a floater in one of his eyes, disk and neck injuries, and numbness in his fingers that radiates through his arm, he said. He was an Ironman triathlete and was planning to compete again last May, but he couldn’t due to his injuries.
“There isn’t a day that goes by that somehow it doesn’t come up or impact my life in some way, you know, everything from my job to my family, to my health,” he said. “It’s just been a very eventful year.”
Nelson said the incident has also taken a toll on his mental health.
He said he’s seeing a therapist and a psychologist and is taking several different medications to deal with anxiety, sleep disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.
“Not one of these things was in my life before Feb. 17 last year,” he said.
Nelson said he’s taking a couple of days off work on the anniversary of the crash just to spend time with his family and reflect on what has impacted every aspect of his life.
Fellow passenger Nate Richie said he didn’t realize how much the approaching anniversary of the crash would affect him until his wife recently spoke to him about how he seemed distant.
One year later, Richie said he still grapples with the physical and mental toll of the crash every day.
Richie remembers the screaming and crying and confusion inside the plane that day as he and his fellow passengers hung upside down from their seats.
“A lot goes through your mind in just a split second. It’s almost like time stands still,” Richie said, describing how he saw memories of his wife, children and grandchildren play out like a movie before him.
He said he blacked out briefly after unbuckling his seatbelt and hitting his head on the overhead baggage compartments below him. When he came to, he smelled gasoline and saw jet fuel streaming down the plane’s windows and pooling outside.
“I was sure at that point there was no getting off this plane,” he said. “I was sure that was going to be my day.”
The mental trauma of the crash has followed him since. Richie said he sees a therapist for depression and persistent “dark thoughts.”
His doctors back home in Cape Coral, Fla., diagnosed him with a traumatic brain injury after the crash, Richie said, on top of injuries to his neck and spine.
Compensation offer not enough, passengers say
In the days after the crash, Delta offered US$30,000 in compensation to those who were on the plane, saying the money “has no strings attached.”
But that is not nearly enough, according to passengers.
A master complaint filed on behalf of all plaintiffs as part of a multidistrict litigation at a U.S. district court in Minnesota alleges that “wrongful acts and omissions” caused damages to passengers that include serious and permanent physical and psychological injuries, economic loss, medical expenses, property damages and the loss of companionship and enjoyment of life.
The litigation is seeking to hold Delta Airlines and its subsidiary carrier Endeavor Air “jointly and severally liable for the resulting injuries and losses to all affected persons.”
Erin Applebaum, a New York-based lawyer whose firm is representing 14 Delta passengers including Nelson, said the crash was “100 per cent preventable.”
“Our contention is that if the pilots had not been landing so fast and so recklessly, that would never have happened,” she alleged.
Applebaum said the court has ordered the start of mediation, and that the airline has requested to mediate three of her cases, excluding Nelson’s, but she hasn’t yet agreed to proceed.
She said the case is currently in a “holding pattern” because they are still waiting for the Transportation Safety Board of Canada to determine the cause of the crash.
“Once the probable cause report comes out, then we have a better basis to make those liability allegations and move forward with that aspect of the litigation,” she said.
Several other lawsuits related to the crash have been filed in U.S. courts.
Delta Air Lines said it remains “fully engaged” in the crash investigation led by the TSB.
“For everyone at Endeavor Air and Delta, nothing is more important than the safety of our customers and our people,” the company said in a statement shared with The Canadian Press. “Out of respect for the integrity of this work that will continue through their final report, Endeavor Air and Delta will refrain from comment.”
Investigation into crash continues
The safety board said last week that its investigation continues and it’s still “too early” to draw any conclusions about the cause and contributing factors in the crash.
The TSB is still working on its final report, and said the work done so far includes a “comprehensive” metallurgical examination of the plane’s landing gear and wing, as well as an analysis of flight data and cockpit voice recorders.
The safety board had suggested in a preliminary report last March that the aircraft came down at a high speed and touched down hard enough to break its landing gear, but did not draw any conclusions.
Richie said he hopes the eventual TSB report will prompt changes to airline safety regulations, so that nothing similar happens again to anyone else.
He said he hasn’t heard from Delta Air Lines since it offered the lump sum compensation, and he wants an apology for what has been one of the toughest years of his life.
A year on, Richie said he continues to experience constant back pain, memory loss and difficulty focusing.
While he was once an athletic person, he said he can no longer walk long distances, let alone go for runs like he used to.
“My children and grandchildren live in Kentucky. I used to hop a flight — an hour and a half — to see them,” Richie added. “Now it’s a 14-hour drive, which is very painful on me. I’ve only made it once in this year.”
Even seeing aircraft fly overhead makes him anxious, he said, as he thinks about the passengers aboard entrusting their lives to the pilots and airlines that are supposed to ensure their safety.
He doesn’t think he’ll ever get on another plane.
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