Investigators say a Delta jet descended too quickly before Toronto crash last month.

In releasing its preliminary report on the February 17th crash Thursday, Canada’s Transportation Safety Board noted that in the seconds before touching down, the CRJ 900 was descending at a rate of more than 1,100 feet per minute, which is nearly twice as fast as it should’ve been descending.
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In the final seconds before touching down at Toronto’s Pearson Airport at 2:12 p.m. ET in strong, gusty winds, the TSB report shows that the plane was descending at a rate of more than 1,100 feet per minute. The report notes the aircraft’s operating manual states that a hard landing is defined as “[a] landing at a vertical descent rate greater than 600 ft/min.”

In addition, the plane was banking at an angle of 7.1° to the right, and the pitch attitude was 1° nose up.

The TSB report says that as the plane touched down, the right landing gear fractured and retracted. The right wing then scraped the ground and broke off at the fuselage, releasing a cloud of jet fuel that caught fire as the airplane overturned and moved down the runway.

The preliminary investigation does not explain why the plane was descending faster than it should have, nor what role the strong winds may have had in the crash. Much of the information in the preliminary report comes from the aircraft’s flight data recorder. No information from the cockpit voice recorder was released.

Developing…