Ouch: Delta CRJ-900 Suffers Wing Strike During LaGuardia Go Around

Delta’s wholly owned regional subsidiary is making headlines again, after a plane had a rather scary landing during gusty winds…

Endeavor Air CRJ-900 has wing strike during landing attempt

This incident happened on Sunday, March 16, 2025, and involves a flight operated by Delta’s wholly owned regional subsidiary, Endeavor Air (where flights are marketed as Delta Connection). Specifically, we’re talking about flight DL4814, from Jacksonville (JAX) to New York LaGuardia (LGA), which had a total of 80 passengers and crew onboard. The flight was operated by a 17-year-old CRJ-900 with the registration code N185GJ.

The aircraft came in to land on runway 22. Weather conditions weren’t good at all, with winds at the time reported as being at 22 knots, and gusting to 36 knots. Not only that, but there was quite a crosswind, as wind was blowing at a direction 40 degrees off the runway heading.

While attempting to land at around 10:10PM local time, the aircraft performed a go around, which is a standard procedure. What makes this noteworthy is that the air traffic controller advised the pilots that “somebody saw some sparks from one of your wings,” and asked “you guys feel anything?” One of the pilots simply responded with “we didn’t, but we’ll check it.”

Following the go around, the aircraft positioned for another approach, and landed safely around 20 minutes later, after a total flight time of around 2hr5min.

Over 36 hours after arriving in New York, the aircraft is still on the ground at LaGuardia, and hasn’t yet operated another flight. It remains to be seen how substantial the damage is. The FAA is investigating this incident, and has confirmed this incident, and that the aircraft’s left wing struck the runway while landing.

Delta has issued the following statement:

“The Endeavor Air flight crew followed established procedures to safely enact a go-around at New York-LaGuardia. The aircraft landed safely and proceeded to its arrival gate. We apologize to our customers for the experience.”

Obviously the optics of this aren’t good

I don’t necessarily view this incident as being a huge deal. With the number of flights operating daily, things often do go wrong, and fortunately they end without injuries or fatalities in a vast majority of situations. However, given that this has been reported on all kinds of national news outlets, I figure it’s worth covering a few points:

• It’ll be interesting to see what an investigation reveals into what happened; more immediately, it’ll be telling when this plane reenters service, and if there’s any structural damage
• Obviously this is getting more attention because it’s an Endeavor Air CRJ-900, the same plane that was involved in the Toronto Airport crash several weeks back, and the optics of that aren’t great
• If anything, all of these incidents speak highly for how well built the CRJ-900 is, and just how much the aircraft can withstand, while keeping everyone safe
• Of course you already have some people yelling “DEI” from the rooftops, because the Endeavor Air pilot communicating appears to be a female; keep in mind that the pilot communicating to air traffic control is the pilot monitoring, and not the pilot flying, so she almost certainly wouldn’t have been the one who was landing the aircraft

We don’t yet know what happened here, and to what extent pilot error was to blame. As I’ve written about before, the airline industry definitely has a “juniority” problem, especially at regional airlines. Pilots just aren’t as experienced as they were pre-pandemic. That’s not due to any DEI initiatives, but rather it’s simply because of the number of pilot retirements we saw at the start of the pandemic, plus the fast travel rebound.

I’m not saying that was a factor here, but rather am just pointing out that lack of experience and DEI aren’t the same, since it’s a point people seem obsessed to make.

Bottom line

A Delta Connection CRJ-900 operated by Endeavor Air had a scary landing at LaGuardia, as the plane’s left wing struck the runway during an attempted landing. The plane ended up performing a go around, and landed without incident 20 minutes later. However, the plane has been on the ground ever since.

This incident is now being investigated. More than anything, the optics here aren’t great, given that this is the same regional carrier and aircraft as the Toronto incident several weeks back.

What do you make of this Endeavor Air CRJ-900 incident?