Questions emerge about what may have caused Delta plane to burst into flames and flip over

Investigators will consider the weather conditions, as well as the possibility of human error or an aircraft malfunction as they try to determine why a Delta Air Lines jet burst into flames and flipped upside down as it tried to land in Toronto, aviation experts said Tuesday. Witnesses and video from the scene Monday afternoon shows the plane landing so hard that its right wing is sheared off. It bursts into flames before sliding down the runway and flipping over. Miraculously, all 80 people on board the flight from Minneapolis to Toronto’s Pearson International Airport survived. “It appears from the video that the plane landed so hard that the right main gear collapsed. The tail and right wing began skidding causing the plane to roll over to the right,” Ella Atkins, the head of Virginia Tech’s aerospace and ocean engineering department and a pilot. “During the rollover, the right wing and tail sheared off, and a fire ignited, likely due to skidding and fuel leakage at least from a right wing tank.” All but two of the 21 people injured on the fligh t have been released from hospitals, the airport CEO said Tuesday.<br/>