Delta has the best meteorology department in the business. 

There is so much speculation regarding the weather conditions present for the Delta/Endeavor Airlines crash in Toronto, I would like to provide some perspective.  Please take a look at this from earlier this morning: I don't care about the sex of the pilots, I care about their qualifications and abilities.  Ever since the crash, there has been speculation as to the role of wind or crosswinds -- if any -- and the accident. That's why I posted the wind data (below) in my initial report, here .  The three above reports are aviation weather observations called METAR's. While it was a little less at the time the special METAR was taken because of the accident (middle report), there were peak gusts of 37 knots = 42 mph before and after. Some have called these "40 mph" or "extreme" crosswinds (the latter comment from the airport director). Not exactly.  Below is the runway diagram (red) of Toronto - Pearson Airport.  The plane was landing to the southwest (runw...

"Delta Air Lines CRJ900 crash landed at Toronto Pearson Airport on Monday.  The flight, from Minneapolis-St. Paul, was listed as Endeavor 4819, a CRJ-900 (N932XJ). It appears to have landed upside down." Endeavor is a regional airline that paints its jets in Delta livery. It is the same situation as the American Eagle that crashed in Washington on January 29. The plane was painted in American Airlines livery but it was operated by PSA Airlines.  Update: "All passengers and crew have been accounted for." Reportedly, eight 15 are injured. News media reporting that three injuries are critical. Update: What it looked like escaping from the inside of the plane.   Winds were gusting to 37 mph from the west, the temperature was 18°F. There is a ridiculous speculation on one of the news networks the wind was gusting to 70 mph. The info I reported was from the official weather observation taken because of the crash. See below for the official Toronto-Pearson "METAR,...

Courtesy: Ft. Worth Star-Telegram Used with permission Today is the 35th anniversary of the crash at Delta 191 at DFW International Airport. The crash killed   136. Twenty-five were injured; some of the injuries were horrific. This event was one of the most important in the history of aviation safety. The data collected evaluated Dr. Ted Fujita's hypothesis that downbursts were responsible for an increasing number of airliner crashes. Once this was finally accepted, effective measures could be taken to stop the crashes . Only one has occurred since, in 1994. Downbursts are just as dangerous as ever. There was a downburst-related crash in Mexico in 2018. It is a combination of training and technology that has allowed us to conquer them in the United States. I devote three chapters of Warnings  to this scientific success story. I covered this topic on this blog on past anniversaries: 25th anniversary coverage .  30th anniversary coverage .  It is a terri...

I just finished a magical week in all aspects except one: Delta Air Lines. You'll recall (per my Tweets) that I decided to give Delta another try after a five-year absence. That five-year absence was due to several consecutive bad experiences. Because of the extremely special occasion, I went ahead and purchased first class tickets for Kathleen and me. They were $200 extra. One of the reasons was because our flight left at 11:10am (arrived in Atlanta at 2:20pm) and it said they served "lunch" in first class. Here's how it worked out: Dirty, sticky tray table. It required both wet napkins and a wet wipe to clean. It is amazing that Delta expects its customers to clean its tray tables.  Broken seat. My seat kept 'reclining' even though I didn't want it to.  Sat on the tarmac in ATL for 45 minutes even though the weather was fine throughout the region. Mis-installed seat belt. I rang the flight attendant call button: no response. I flagged down ...