Delta Air Lines has released the credentials of the pilots from the flight that crashed in Toronto, saying it needed to refute “misleading” claims about them circulating on social media.
Flames erupted as Delta Air Lines’ Endeavor Flight 4819 touched down hard on the tarmac at Toronto Pearson International Airport on Feb. 17. The aircraft skidded on the runway and turned on its side before flipping upside down, one wing sheared off.
All 76 passengers and four crew members escaped the wreckage and the 21 injured passengers transported to Toronto-area hospitals have since been released.
The dramatic footage of the plane’s crash landing has led to online speculation that those operating the plane lacked the necessary qualifications to do so.
The airline released a statement the evening of Feb. 20, saying it wanted to set the record straight about the “disinformation in social media containing false and misleading assertions about the flight crew of Endeavor Air 4819.”
The pilots at the controls of the Mitsubishi CRJ900 are both qualified and FAA certified in their positions, Delta said.
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Delta’s statement did not identify the pilots other than to indicate that the captain was male and the first officer female.
The captain of the flight was hired by Endeavor Air in 2007 and has experience in both active duty and flight safety training, Delta said.
“Assertions that he failed training events are false,” the airline said. “Assertions that he failed to flow into a pilot position at Delta Air Lines due to training failures are also false.”
The first officer was hired in early 2024 and completed training in April, the company said, adding that the woman exceeded U.S. federal flight regulations.
“She has been flying for Endeavor since that time,” Delta said. “Assertions that she failed training events are false.”
Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) hiring practices in the airline industry were first brought to the forefront by U.S. President Donald Trump when he questioned if such rules were a factor in the fatal in-air crash in Washington, D.C., when an American Airlines plane and a U.S. Army helicopter collided, leaving 67 dead.
Some social media users had questioned Delta’s hiring practices following the crash in Toronto. Some had speculated that the pilots were hired so the airline could meet its DEI quota. DEI has yet to be linked to either crash.
Crash Probe Continues
The cause of the crash remains under investigation by the Transportation Safety Board (TSB) of Canada. TBS is leading the probe assisted by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, Delta’s incident response team and the manufacturer of the aircraft.
TBS senior investigator Ken Webster said 20-plus TSB investigators are involved in the probe and continue to look into what caused the crash.
“At this point it’s far too early to say what the cause of this accident might be,” he said in a Feb. 18 video update. “We will share more information once we are able to.”
Webster said TSB investigators have removed both the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder and have sent them to its lab for further analysis.
The aircraft was removed from the runway early on Feb. 19 and was taken to a hangar where it will “undergo further examination,” the TBS said.
Delta announced the same day it would offer US$30,000 to each of the passengers aboard the flight. The payments are a good-faith gesture with “no strings attached,” a spokesperson for the airline said in a Feb. 19 statement to the media.
If all passengers aboard the jet take the offer, the payout will total more than $2.2 million. Some passengers have already retained legal representation to pursue further action.
Kimberly Hayek contributed to this report.
