Passengers onboard an Air Canada flight that collided with a firetruck at New York City‘s busy LaGuardia Airport on Sunday night have praised the pilots for their ‘incredible reflexes,’ which they say saved lives.
The pilot Antoine Forest, 30, of Coteau-du-Lac in Quebec, and his first officer, Mackenzie Gunther, were killed upon impact, while 41 others were rushed to a local hospital for injuries they sustained.
But Rebecca Liquori said she is ‘forever indebted’ to the pilots’ quick instincts to try to stop the plane.
‘I feel like the pilots saved our lives,’ she told CNN‘s Erin Burnett on Monday. ‘They’re the reasons I was able to make it home safe to see my boys, and my heart goes out to their families.’
Clément Lelièvre, a French national, also told The Canadian Press how he felt the pilots brake ‘extremely hard’ as the plane touched down at around 11.45pm.
By doing so, he said he believes the pilots prevented further deaths.
‘I don’t know the circumstances, but I think he kind of saved our lives because he must have had incredible reflexes,’ Lelièvre said.
As federal investigators now work to determine what may have caused the fatal collision, friends and family members remembered the two pilots for their dedication to aviation.
Antoine Forest, 30, of Coteau-du-Lac in Quebec, was killed upon impact when the Air Canada flight he was flying from Montreal collided with a fire truck at LaGuardia International Airport on Sunday night
Passengers now praise his and his first officer’s quick-thinking actions with preventing any further deaths. Pictured: Forest
Surveillance footage of the runway showed the Air Canada Bombardier CRJ-900 aircraft landing at the same moment the fire truck crossed its path on the tarmac
‘These were two young men at the start of their careers,’ Federal Aviation Administrator Brian Bedford said.
‘It’s an absolute tragedy that we’re sitting here with their loss.’
Forest was just 16 years old when he first took to the skies, his great-aunt Jeanette Gagnier told the Toronto Star.
She explained that when he was in Grade 11, Forest asked if he could stay with her in Ontario to attend school and learn more English so he could improve his chances at a career as a pilot.
‘He was always taking courses and flying,’ said Gagnier, whom Forest listed on his Facebook page as his grandmother. ‘He never stopped.’
Forest would go on to get a job as an assistant engineer with Canadian Helicopters Limited, before moving on to successive stints with other Quebec-based airplane services as an apprentice and a first officer, his LinkedIn shows.
He then listed himself as a first officer listed himself for Jazz Aviation, flying Air Canada Express out of Montreal, in 2022.
Alexandre Circé also told the Montreal Gazette that Forest was drawn to flying as ‘one of the last true adventurer’s professions.’
‘He was very interested in mechanics and how things work, so aviation suited him perfectly,’ Circé said, calling Forest’s untimely death ‘a tremendous loss for his family and loved ones, but also for anyone who might have crossed paths with him in the future.’
A terrified passenger shared shocking images of the damage to the aircraft
The fire truck was completely destroyed by the wreck, but both firefighters were expected to survive
Meanwhile, Seneca Polytechnic Institute released a statement saying Gunther graduated from the school’s Honors Bachelor of Aviation Technology program in 2023 and joined Jazz Aviation through the company’s Pathways program, which allowed him to begin flying immediately after graduation.
‘Seneca sends our deepest condolences to Mr Gunther’s family and friends and to his former colleagues and professors,’ school officials said in a statement. ‘He will be deeply missed.’
Surveillance footage from the deadly crash showed the Air Canada Bombardier CRJ-900 aircraft landing at the same moment a fire truck crossed its path on the tarmac.
The plane was traveling at approximately 150mph when it struck the fire truck during heavy rainfall, and the footage showed a huge splash of water as the collision sent the truck careening across the runway.
But audio from air traffic control revealed workers pleaded for the fire truck to stop seconds before it crashed into the landing jet.
The fire truck had been given permission to cross the runway to deal with an unrelated issue on a separate plane, where a pilot reported that an ‘odor’ was filling the aircraft that left ‘flight attendants feeling ill’, officials said.
As the fire truck raced to the other aircraft, air traffic controllers appeared to realize it was on a collision course with the Air Canada jet just seconds before impact at around 11.30pm, as one said in the audio: ‘Truck One, stop, stop, stop!’
Addressing the plane seconds later, the air traffic controller said: ‘JAZZ 646, I see you collided with the vehicle. Just hold position. I know you can’t move. Vehicles are responding to you now.’
National Transportation Safety Board members will now comb through the wreckage to figure out what to collect and take back to a lab in Washington DC
NTSB personnel were seen inspecting the damage as they arrived at the scene on Monday
The audio from air traffic controller tower then showed the dispatcher telling the crew of a nearby Frontier plane that the runway would be closed, asking if they would like to return to the ramp.
‘We got stuff in progress for that man, that wasn’t good to watch,’ a Frontier pilot said.
‘Yeah, I tried to reach out to them. We were dealing with an emergency, and I messed up,’ the controller replied, before the Frontier pilot tried to reassure him, saying: ‘No, you did the best you could.’
There were 72 passengers and four crew members aboard the aircraft, and experts said the death toll could have been far higher if the truck had collided with the fuel stored on the plane.
Images from the tarmac after the incident showed the truck was destroyed in the collision. The nose of the Air Canada plane had also been torn off by the impact.
Two of the 41 people hospitalized in the crash were the firefighters who were inside the firetruck when it was struck by the oncoming plane, Sergeant Michael Orsillo and Officer Adrian Baez.
They were both expected to survive the crash, with Baez being released from the hospital on Monday, Bobby Egbert, a spokesman for the Port Authority Police Benevolent Association said.
Solange Tremblay, a female flight attendant who was ejected through the front of the jet while still strapped to her jump seat, was also expected to make a full recovery.
Solange Tremblay, a female flight attendant who was ejected through the front of the jet while still strapped to her jump seat, was expected to make a full recovery
The deadly crash left LaGuardia Airport closed for several hours, before it reopened Monday afternoon at a reduced capacity while the wrecked plane and firetruck remain on the tarmac.
National Transportation Safety Board members will now comb through the wreckage to figure out what to collect and take back to a lab in Washington DC, Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said at a news conference.
But authorities have already been able to retrieve the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder, Homendy told reporters.
She said the NTSB, Port Authority and emergency responders had to cut a hole in the roof of the aircraft and drop down into the wreckage to secure the devices.
They were then taken back to labs in Washington DC, and investigators have ‘been able to at least verify that the cockpit voice recorder was not damaged,’ Homendy said.
The NTSB will also work to verify preliminary information about staffing at the air traffic control tower at the time of the crash, following reports that the air traffic controller on duty Sunday night had been working two positions at the time of the crash.
‘We have to look at records,’ Homendy said. ‘There are sign-in sheets. We have to do interviews. We have to look at time cards. That is information we always have to corroborate.’
But Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has denied that only one air traffic controller was working, as he vowed to offer bonuses for older air traffic controllers on Monday.
