A man has told how he escaped the Delta Airlines plane that crashed in Toronto just before it “exploded”.

Remarkable footage shows the plane upside down on the runway at Toronto Pearson Airport, having flipped upside down with the wings snapped off. A blizzard is known to have been blowing when the plane coming from Minneapolis came in to land in the Canadian city and information is slowly emerging about how it came to crash with the strong winds and ice.

Emergency services have said that astonishingly, of the 80 people on board, only three have suffered “critical” injuries – a child and two adults in their 60s.

People were filmed being helped away from the plane by another passenger, John Nelson, who appeared breathless as he described the incident on Facebook. He said: “In Toronto just landed our plane crashed it’s upside down.”

He was talking as he appeared to be filming from the runway and looking at the plane as people were being helped to safety in the snow and ice. He added: “It’s upside down everybody…. most people appear to be okay believe it or not.”

And John told just how lucky they were as there was an explosion shortly afterwards. “I landed and was stuck upside down. It exploded shortly after the video,” he said.

Elsewhere, a woman uploaded footage from inside the cabin to her Snapchat, shortly after landing. Ashley Zook’s terrifying video showed her shadowy face with the caption: “My plane crashed I’m upside down”. She then shortly recorded more footage from outside the plane, showing the hull on its back.

Jason Yin was at the airport when he said he saw black smoke in the sky. He told KHOU 11: “We saw the black smoke coming from the runway, inside the airport, we were doing some plane spotting (…) and we saw the smoke so we came over to try and see exactly what was happening.

“I walked up to the fence and I could see the crash. The plane had flipped and I could see people evacuating from inside.” Another person who managed to escape the plane was Ashley Zook who said on Snapchat: “I was just in a plane crash. Oh my god.”

And a member of staff working at Toronto’s Pearson International airport watched the plane skid and crash land. He said: “It appears that everyone got out alive – it’s a miracle. I cannot believe that We’ve had horrendous weather here for several days. Two huge storms. There’s been so much snow.”

CTV News Toronto spoke to other travellers trying to catch flights at Pearson airport who called the crash “scary.” One said: “I’m so relieved everyone has got out alive. The plane is still there – upside down on the tarmac.” Another said: “I feel for the people. I feel for everybody in this airport that’s been delayed and thrown off all weekend and then for this to happen today. It’s a shame and I don’t want to fly ever again at this point.”

An investigation is now beginning into what happened and there is plenty of speculation about the condition of the runway due to the weather conditions. Meteorologists say that there was blowing snow in Toronto and visibility was down to six miles at the time of the incident, with winds at 20 mph and gusts up to 37 mph. Temperatures were well below freezing, at -8C.

A correspondent for local outlet WCPO said: “Toronto has experienced a level of snow that they really haven’t seen in years over the course of the weekend. There were delays on delays. The roads have been very bad all weekend. The tarmac is incredibly icy as well.”

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