Flight urgently turns back to Toronto after plane collides with 'white object'

A Toronto flight was forced to turn back to Pearson Airport after striking a "white object" mid-air, and flight audio shows just how calm and cool the pilots stayed during the potential emergency situation.

The Air Canada Jazz flight with 53 passengers had just departed from Toronto Pearson International Airport, bound for Cleveland-Hopkins International Airport, on Sept. 4 when trouble started brewing.

The Embraer E175SU aircraft operating Air Canada flight 8735 reached an altitude of 1,000 feet when pilots noticed the aircraft had struck a white object they believed was a bird, causing strong vibrations from one of the aircraft's engines.

Audio of the incident shared on the YouTube channel You can see ATC highlights how the flight crew and air traffic controllers kept calm during the incident and worked together to safely guide the aircraft back to Pearson Airport.

The aircraft was ascending eastbound after taking off from Pearson's 06-24 runway when the crew declared "PAN-PAN," the international radio signal for an urgent situation that falls just short of a full-on emergency.

"Toronto, Jazz 735, PAN-PAN, PAN-PAN, PAN-PAN. We've hit something on departure. We're still climbing. Engines look good. We're getting high vibration on [the] number one engine right now. Just want to stay in the vicinity. If you can climb us and get us back to Toronto, please." 

The tower at Pearson Airport directs the plane to maintain an altitude of 5,000 feet and vectors it back to the runway.

While the plane climbed after the potential bird strike, the crew noticed some issues with the engine in question.

"It looks like the engine's running fine. It's just...we're getting some high vibes, so it's best to go back in there when we can."

As to the source of the engine trouble, crew audio explains, "I was pilot monitoring in the left seat, and we hit something after takeoff. It was probably around 1,000 feet, white object. I think it was a bird. I'm not entirely sure, but it hit our left engine."

The airplane landed safely on Pearson's runway 06 left and was inspected by emergency crews before passengers once again departed for Cleveland just under an hour later.