Toronto plane crash: Texas man on board flight sues Delta Air Lines

TEXAS - A Central Texas man on Delta Flight 4819 that landed upside down in Toronto is suing the airline.

All 80 people on board survived, and 21 were injured.   

What happened on the Delta flight?

What we know:

Communications between the tower at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport and the pilot were normal on approach and airport officials said Monday was a clear day with normal operations before the crash.

Toronto Pearson Fire Chief Todd Aitken said the runway was dry and there were no crosswind conditions. Audio recordings indicate the control tower warned the pilots of a possible air flow "bump" on the approach. Winds were gusting up to 40 mph (65 kph).

Delta said Thursday morning the crashed aircraft was removed from the runway at the airport on Wednesday. The process took several hours. 

Local perspective:

Marthinus Lourens was traveling for work. The flight was from Minneapolis to Toronto. The right wing clipped the runway, causing a fire, and the airplane flipped upside down.

Andres Pereira is an aviation attorney with DJC Law representing Lourens.

"No one knew there was an issue. The only thing they experienced was the impact of the plane hitting the ground and then turning over. It was within seconds," Pereira said.

Texas man is suing Delta Air Lines

Local perspective:

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Georgia, where Delta is based. 

It reads in part, "Mr. Lourens was violently tossed about and ended up upside down hanging from his seatbelt inside a burning plane with aviation fuel leaking on to him."

It also says he "suffered additional physical injuries when he released his seatbelt and fell to the ceiling of the upside-down aircraft."

Those injuries are on his head, neck, back, knees, and face.

Pereira says Lourens even helped open the emergency exit, and when they were driven to a rescue area, they had to wait.

"They had to wait on the bus for quite a while. An hour and a half, Marty told me. Covered in fuel. People had headaches all day long after that because of being exposed to the jet fuel," Pereira said.

The lawsuit seeks damages for physical injuries, mental anguish, and future medical costs. It accuses the airline of negligence in the operation, maintenance, and management of the flight. 

"Planes don't just crash for no reason. We believe Delta is negligent. Besides that, they may have not trained the flight crew properly, and they may not have maintained the aircraft properly. They may not have been communicating with air traffic control or with the control tower in Toronto properly. We don't know yet," Pereira said.

Lourens has since come back to Austin and is seeing a doctor to determine the extent of his injuries. Pereira says this affects his work, and he has already had to cancel future trips. 

"This is something that's been very meaningful for him and that has really affected his life," he said.

What's next:

Pereira says there's still a lot to look into. That includes everything from his client's medical test results to the pilots' backgrounds. 

He added crews were working on a maintenance issue before the flight, but it's not clear yet if that was related to the crash.

Delta has offered each passenger a "no strings attached" $30,000. Pereira says they haven't received anything in writing yet. 

"We may accept it if there are truly no strings attached, but if it would affect a lawsuit in any way, then it's unlikely that we will accept it," he said.

Delta declined to comment on pending litigation. They most recently stated that rumors about the pilots failing training are false.

The cause of the crash is being investigated by the Canadian Board of Transportation and U.S. National Transportation Safety Board.

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