The World This Hour - The World This Hour for 2025/02/17 at 23:00 EST

Episode Date: February 18, 2025

The World This Hour for 2025/02/17 at 23:00 EST

In Scarborough, there's this fire behind our eyes. A passion in our bellies. It's in the hearts of our neighbors. The eyes of our nurses. And the hands of our doctors. It's what makes Scarborough, Scarborough. In our hospitals, we do more than anyone thought possible. We've less than anyone could imagine.

But it's time to imagine what we can do with more. Join Scarborough Health Network and together, we can turn grit into greatness. Donate at lovescarborough.ca. From CBC News, The World This Hour, I'm Neil Herland. A plane crashed and flipped on its back at Toronto's Pearson Airport Monday afternoon. A total of 80 were on board.

Everyone survived, but 18 passengers were injured. The flight was from Minneapolis, a Delta Airlines regional jet. The CBC's Thomas Dagla is at the airport tonight. Well, there are several jets parked here on the tarmac at Pearson Airport as arrivals and departures are ramping up again. Some big gusts of winds blowing the snow that fell the past couple days here. This crash happened just as the Bombardier CRJ 900 was landing here. It's now flat on its back, covered in snow.

Cell phone video taken right after the crash shows damage to the back of the plane on its underside. Passengers are seen walking away on their own wearing sweaters and whatever else they had on for the flight. Clearly they were not expecting to have to get out in a hurry. Delta Airlines says there were 80 people on board. That's 76 passengers and four crew. All of them have made it out alive which is extraordinary. Canada's Transportation Safety Board says it's sending a team here to investigate what went wrong, and their U.S. counterparts say they'll also be joining the investigation since a U.S. airline was involved.

Thomas Daigle, CBC News, Mississauga, Ontario. Pete Carlson was on that flight, sitting in a window seat 10D. He has a few cuts and bruises, but he's otherwise okay. Tonight he sat down with the CBC's Adrian Arseneau for an exclusive interview. There had been comment early in the flight about strong winds then as we made our descent and made touchdown it was just a very forceful event where all of a sudden everything just kind of went sideways and then the next thing I know is kind of a blink and I'm upside down still strapped in. The one minute I know is kind of a blink and I'm upside down,

still strapped in. The one minute you're landing, kind of waiting to see your friends and your people and the next minute you're physically upside down and just really turned around. But it sounded, I mean it was just cement and metal, you know. I think the absolute initial feeling is just need to get out of this. Took my seatbelt off, which I had obviously left fastened for the landing. And as I took it off, crashed down onto the ceiling,

which had become the floor because we were upside down. Everyone on that plane suddenly became very close in terms of how to help one another, how to console one another, and that was powerful. But yeah, there was definite what now? Who's leading? How do we find ourselves away from this? You can watch that interview tonight on The National on CBC News Network and CBC Gem.

And we are learning more tonight about the rescue operation on the runway. Todd Aitken is the fire chief at Toronto's Pearson Airport. Upon arrival, my team conducted fire suppression. Self-evacuation was already taking place. This is an active investigation. It's very early on. It's really important that we do not speculate. What we can say is the runway was dry and there was no crosswind conditions. This is the fourth major aviation mishap in North America in the past month.

The deadliest disaster happened in Washington on January 29th when a commercial jet line and a U.S. Army helicopter collided, killing 67 people. The leaders of Ontario's main political parties faced off in an election debate tonight. One of the testiest moments was this exchange between Ontario Liberal leader Bonnie Cromby and progressive Conservative leader Doug Ford. Doug, I have one question for you and one question only. After seven years of lies, why should anyone trust a word you say? Well, first of all, action speaks louder than words,

and people have seen us spend over $200 billion on infrastructure, no matter if it's $50 billion worth of hospitals or $28 billion in building roads and highways or $70 billion in building transit. Doug, you put us into an extra $100 billion of debt. How does any one government spend $100 billion? Ontario NDP leader Marit Stiles and Green Party leader Mike Schreiner also took part in the debate.

Ontario votes on February 27th. And that is your World This Hour. For CBC News, I'm Neil Herland.