TORONTO: Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian said on Wednesday the flight crew on board the regional jet that flipped upside down upon landing in Toronto earlier this week was experienced.
The crew on Delta’s Endeavor Air subsidiary in Monday’s crash, in which 21 people were injured, was familiar with wintry conditions in Toronto, Bastian told “CBS Mornings” in an interview.
“There is one level of safety at Delta,” Bastian said. “All these pilots train for these conditions.”
Bastian called the video of the incident “horrifying” but praised the actions of the flight crew to quickly evacuate the airplane. “This is what we train for,” Bastian said. “We train for this continuously.”
All of those injured are expected to survive.
On Tuesday, investigators said they recovered black boxes for lab analysis. Transportation Safety Board of Canada senior investigator Ken Webster said that following initial impact on the runway at Toronto’s Pearson Airport, parts of the CRJ900 aircraft separated and a fire ensued.
Bastian said despite several high-profile incidents, air travel remains safe. “It is the safest form of transportation, period,” Bastian said.
Webster echoed other aviation safety officials saying it was too early to tell what happened to Flight 4819 from Minneapolis-St. Paul. Air crashes are usually caused by multiple factors.
In a separate video showing the plane’s descent, the landing appeared flat and did not show the regular “flare” of the jet, where pilots pull the nose up to increase pitch just prior to touchdown, experts said.
The 16-year-old CRJ900, made by Canada’s Bombardier and powered by GE Aerospace engines, can seat up to 90 people.
Toronto Pearson Airport on Monday was dealing with high winds and frigid temperatures as airlines attempted to rebound after a major weekend snowstorm.
Separately, Bastian said he had spoken to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and was not concerned by the layoff of several hundred employees at the Federal Aviation Administration, saying they were in “non-critical safety functions.” Bastian said the Trump administration was committed to boosting air traffic controller hiring and improving air traffic technology.
Delta CEO says flight crew on Toronto plane that crashed was experienced
https://arab.news/band5
Delta CEO says flight crew on Toronto plane that crashed was experienced
- “There is one level of safety at Delta,” Bastian said
- “All these pilots train for these conditions“
UN experts condemn US move to strip migrant children of legal aid
- Trump’s immigration crackdown, including an effort to deport hundreds of thousands of migrant children who entered the US without their parents
WASHINGTON: UN human rights experts on Tuesday denounced the Trump administration’s decision last year to cut legal aid for unaccompanied children in US immigration proceedings. The condemnation came days after UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk urged the Trump administration to ensure that its migration policies respect individual rights and international law.
“Denying children their rights to legal representation and forcing them to navigate complex immigration proceedings without legal counsel is a serious violation of the rights of children,” said the independent experts, who are appointed by the UN Human Rights Council.
The White House dismissed the experts and said it had made attempts to locate children it says were smuggled into the United States under the previous administration, without elaborating with specific examples.
“No one takes the UN seriously because of their extreme bias and selective outrage – they should be praising the Administration for protecting children, not lying about our policies,” Abigail Jackson, a spokeswoman for the White House, said.
In February, the US Department of the Interior ordered legal service providers working with the children to stop work and cut their funding. The providers sued over the move and a federal judge later temporarily restored the funding for the program. The cuts came amid President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, including an effort to deport hundreds of thousands of migrant children who entered the US without their parents.
The UN experts called the deportations unlawful and said they breached international human rights law prohibiting the removal of vulnerable groups, including children at risk of human trafficking. They also condemned the administration’s $2,500 offer to get the unaccompanied children to voluntarily leave the US
“Child-sensitive justice procedures should be guaranteed in all immigration and asylum proceedings affecting children,” said the experts, who have been in contact with the US government on the issue.
More than 600,000 migrant children have crossed the US-Mexico border without a parent or legal guardian since 2019, according to government data.
