Survivors recount terror a year after fiery plane crash at Toronto's Pearson airport

As his plane descended in Toronto, John Nelson looked out the window to get a view of the city and felt the aircraft was coming down at an abnormally high speed. Moments later, the plane hit the ground so hard that it broke the landing gear, slid, flipped and burst into flames on the runway at Pearson airport.

"It was like being in a washer," Nelson said in an interview, describing how the plane flipped over in the fiery crash one year ago.

"When we finally came to a stop ... we were upside down, there was jet fuel smell. There was fire."

He remembers crashing onto the plane's ceiling after unbuckling his seatbelt. 

Miraculously, all 76 passengers and four crew members survived when Delta Air Lines Flight 4819 from Minneapolis, operated by subsidiary Endeavor Air, crashed on Feb. 17, 2025. Though most escaped unharmed, 21 people on board were taken to hospital.

Nelson, a father of two who lives in Minnesota, said he's still reeling. 

The crash has left him with injuries that include a torn retina, a floater in one of his eyes, disk and neck injuries, and numbness in his fingers that radiates through his arm, he said. He was an Ironman triathlete and was planning to compete again last May, but he couldn't due to his injuries.

"There isn't a day that goes by that somehow it doesn't come up or impact my life in some way, you know, everything from my job to my family, to my health," he said. "It's just been a very eventful year."

Nelson said the incident has also taken a toll on his mental health. 

He said he's seeing a therapist and a psychologist and is taking several different medications to deal with anxiety, sleep disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. 

"Not one of these things was in my life before Feb. 17 last year," he said. 

Nelson said he's taking a couple of days off work on the anniversary of the crash just to spend time with his family and reflect on what has impacted every aspect of his life. 

Fellow passenger Nate Richie said he didn't realize how much the approaching anniversary of the crash would affect him until his wife recently spoke to him about how he seemed distant. 

One year later, Richie said he still grapples with the physical and mental toll of the crash every day.