Jarring images of a plane flipped upside down, wings broken off, spread on social media after an apparent crash of a Delta regional flight while landing in Toronto (YYZ) Monday afternoon. Yet miraculously, there were no fatalities in the aftermath of the latest troubling accident involving a commercial airline.

The flight in question was Delta 4819, operated by Delta's regional subsidiary Endeavor Air under the banner of Delta Connection, from Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP) to Toronto on Monday. By Thursday morning, Delta confirmed that all 21 passengers who had been hospitalized with injuries had been released.

It's an incredible outcome for what easily could have been another tragedy.

 

 

Even days later, the cause of the incident was not clear. Tracking data for the flight from FlightRadar24 shows a relatively normal flight to the Toronto airport before it landed around 2:13 p.m. EST. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada will lead an investigation, though U.S. officials representing the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said both agencies were heading to Toronto to assist.

Footage captured from a nearby plane clearly shows the Bombardier CRJ-900 landing hard on its right side – perhaps collapsing the landing gear – before rolling, breaking off a wing in a fiery explosion. The fuselage continues sliding down the runway, leaving a plume of black smoke in its wake, its second wing rotating clockwise through the air before it comes to rest down the runway

 

 

 

Photos and video from the aftermath show the Delta Connection jet completely upside down on the tarmac and surrounded by snow, its tail largely severed, and both wings ripped off. Emergency responders were spraying down the jet as passengers exited the upside-down plane. 

 

 

Days after the crash, Delta confirmed to the Star Tribune it would give all 76 customers onboard $30,000 apiece as a goodwill gesture – with “no strings attached,” meaning that wouldn't preclude passengers from pursuing additional compensation from the airline through the courts or other venues. The airline also released information about the pilots in the cockpit at the time, hoping to counter online misinformation about their training and proficiency that spread in the wake of the crash.

Aviation is the safest form of transportation in the world – and it's not even close – and it keeps getting safer. Yet travelers' confidence has been rattled after a handful of recent incidents, including the horrifying mid-air collision of a military helicopter and American Airlines regional flight near the Washington, D.C.-Reagan (DCA) airport, which killed all 67 people onboard the two aircraft.

That was the first crash with fatalities involving a commercial U.S. airliner since 2009.