An Air Canada flight attendant was reportedly flung nearly 330 feet from the aircraft, still strapped into her jump seat, after the deadly crash at New York’s LaGuardia Airport late Sunday.
Solange Tremblay, the lead flight attendant, sustained multiple fractures in one leg and is expected to undergo surgery, her daughter Sarah Lepine told Canadian broadcaster TVA Nouvelles.
According to Lepine, first responders found Tremblay still secured to her seat after the impact. Calling her survival "a total miracle," she added that the family is struggling to process the incident.
"I'm still trying to understand how all this happened, but she definitely has a guardian angel watching over her," Lepine said.
The Air Canada Express CRJ-900 with 72 passengers and four crew members on board, was flying from Montreal, when it collided with a fire truck while landing at LaGuardia in New York. Both the pilot and co-pilot were killed, while several others were injured.
The fire truck had been authorised to cross the runway shortly before midnight to inspect another aircraft that had aborted takeoff due to a reported “strange odour.”
Surveillance footage shows the moment of impact, with the aircraft striking the vehicle as it moved across the runway, sending both skidding along the tarmac.
Air traffic control audio suggests the controller had warned of the truck’s presence and cleared it to cross. Seconds later, urgent instructions,“Stop, stop, stop," can be heard. About 20 minutes after the crash, the controller appears to accept responsibility, saying, “We were handling an earlier emergency… I made a mistake.”
A passenger onboard described a chaotic sequence as the plane descended. She said the aircraft encountered turbulence before braking sharply, followed by a loud explosion.
"Everybody just jolted out of their seats. People hit their heads. People were bleeding," Rebecca Liquori told a news channel.
She added that passengers assisted one another in evacuating via the wing. “I’m just grateful to be alive,” she said, noting that it was a routine one-hour journey she had taken many times before.
"I would have never pictured a one-hour flight that I've done countless times ... ending like this," she said.
The deceased pilots have been identified as Antoine Forest and MacKenzie Gunther, both based in Canada.
Forest’s great aunt, Jeannette Gagnier, said he had long aspired to become a pilot. His professional profile indicated experience with two airlines over the past five years.
Bryan Bedford, head of the Federal Aviation Administration, described the incident as “an absolute tragedy,” noting that both pilots were in the early stages of their careers.
The crash comes at a time when US aviation is grappling with persistent shortages of air traffic controllers, alongside staffing gaps in airport security due to a partial government shutdown, factors that have contributed to delays and long queues at airports nationwide.
