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After Delta Flight 4819’s cabin rolled over and came to rest in a terrifying crash landing at Toronto Pearson International Airport, a flight attendant stood on what had been the ceiling – one leg propped on an upturned baggage compartment – and addressed passengers who’d unbuckled themselves from upside-down seats. “Drop everything! Drop it. Come on,” she shouts in a video recorded by a passenger, her voice composed but forceful as she guides people to leave through an open exit door. “Put that phone away!” As authorities investigate the cause of Monday’s crash, broad consensus about part of the aftermath has emerged: The pair of flight attendants did well to help dozens of passengers evacuate from the overturned aircraft. “They performed their work perfectly as aviation’s first responders,” said Sara Nelson, the international president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, using one of the union’s favorite descriptors for its more than 50,000 members. “This is the reason that we are on the plane: to evacuate passengers from a crash landing like this safely,” she said. “And they did that.” Though flight attendants help keep passengers comfortable in part by giving out drinks, snacks, blankets and headphones, attendants are first meant to help keep travelers safe – a job that requires extensive and repeated training. “They are responsible for much more than picking up trash and serving sodas,” said Michael McCormick, an associate professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. “They’re trained professionals responsible for the safety of the passengers. And they did a phenomenal job.” All 80 people on board Monday’s flight – four crew and 76 passengers – survived the crash, though officials said 21 people were taken to hospitals with injuries. By Wednesday, all but one had been released, Delta said. The flight, operated by Delta’s regional partner Endeavor Air, took off from Minneapolis bound for the Toronto area, which strong winds had been hitting all day. Shortly after 2 p.m., as the flight approached Toronto Pearson – located in the suburb of Mississauga – air traffic controllers warned the pilots about 38 mph gusts. The aircraft landed hard on the runway, video shows, the right wing making contact with the ground before falling away in a blaze of fire. <br/>

Delta Air Lines says all 21 people taken to hospital after one of its planes crashed in Toronto have now been released, as airport officials work to reopen two runways. The wreckage has been cleared from the runway, but the airport is still operating at reduced capacity and two out of five runways remain closed, an official with Toronto's Pearson airport says. It's not clear when those runways will reopen, and the airport is still advising travellers to check their flight status before they leave. Meanwhile, Delta Air Lines says it will continue to provide care to those who were on board Delta's Endeavor Flight 4819 when it crashed upon landing Monday at Pearson. All 76 passengers and four crew members survived when the plane skidded on the tarmac and burst into flames. The airline is offering the passengers US$30,000 each as compensation, saying that the money "has no strings attached." <br/>

After watching videos of a Delta Air Lines jet catch fire upon landing and flip over on a Toronto runway, it’s fair to wonder how anyone could have survived. But aviation experts said it was not surprising that all 76 passengers and four crew walked away from Monday’s disaster, with 21 people suffering minor injuries and only one still hospitalized on Wednesday. It’s a credit, they said, to advances in plane design as well as a crew that flawlessly executed an evacuation plan. “When I first saw (footage of) that aircraft upside down at the airport, I was like: ‘How can that happen? And how can anybody survive that?’” Michael McCormick, an assistant professor and program coordinator for air traffic management at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida, said. “It was absolutely astounding to watch the people actually climbing out.” McCormick and others said the fact that there were only minor injuries shows that passenger jet design and engineering have greatly improved over time. Fuel tanks are stored in the wings, so the wings are designed to break off in a crash to remove a seriously explosive hazard, he said. The tail-like fin of a plane known as a vertical stabilizer is frangible — or easily broken — meaning an aircraft that has flipped over can stay flat on the ground and passengers and crew are able to evacuate, he said. “Aviation is and remains the safest form of transportation,” McCormick said, adding that it was no fluke 80 people were able to walk away from the Toronto crash. “That is because the safety of aviation is constantly improving.” Jeff Guzzetti, an airline safety consultant and a former investigator for the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board, said the seats and seat belts also helped to prevent fatalities. He noted that passenger jet seats are designed to withstand impacts of up to 16 times the force of gravity and that the seat belts restrained the passengers who were suspended upside down as the plane slid to a halt on the runway at Toronto Pearson International Airport.<br/>