Air Canada passengers recount moment of deadly collision on LaGuardia runway

‘We’d hit something and there was nobody in control,’ says passenger Jack Cabot

A view of the site of a collision on the runway of LaGuardia Airport where an Air Canada plane struck a Port Authority fire truck An Air Canada jet and fire truck sit on the runway at LaGuardia airport on Monday after colliding Sunday night in New York. (Seth Wenig/The Associated Press)

Air Canada passengers who were aboard Flight 8646 when the CRJ-900 aircraft struck a fire truck upon landing at New York’s LaGuardia Airport on Sunday evening say the collision was sudden and forceful, and they may owe their lives to the pilots who died in the incident.

“Right as we hit the ground, we kind of felt, like, the brake was pretty hard and we all felt something was wrong,” said passenger Jack Cabot, describing the moment of the collision to CBC News Network.

“And then, it was just this sudden, overwhelming, like, panic, because we’d hit something and there was nobody in control.”

The crash occurred late Sunday evening.

The captain and the first officer were killed. Radio-Canada sources have identified the captain as Antoine Forest and the first officer as Mackenzie Gunther.

The flight, which was operated by Air Canada Express carrier Jazz Aviation, had taken off from Montreal Trudeau International Airport and then headed on to New York’s LaGuardia.

Air Canada said the plane was carrying “approximately 72 passengers and four crew members,” at the time of the crash.

The airline said it was “deeply saddened” by the death of the two pilots, offering condolences to “the entire Jazz community and their families.”
WATCH | A terrifying event: 

Air Canada crash passenger describes what happened

“We didn’t know if we were going to make it,” says Jack Cabot, who was on board the Air Canada jet when it collided with a fire truck on the runway at New York City’s LaGuardia Airport.

Clément Lelièvre, a French national who was also a passenger on board the flight, said the pilots likely did what they could to save the lives of passengers.

“Just as the plane touched down, the pilot braked extremely hard,” he told The Canadian Press.

“I don’t know the circumstances, but I think he kind of saved our lives because he must have had incredible reflexes.”

Dozens taken to hospital

Authorities said more than 40 people were taken to hospital following the crash.

View of crash scene at New York's LaGuardia Airport, looking from the tail end of the CRJ-900 that collided with a firetruck U.S. National Transportation Safety Board investigators are seen inspecting the wreckage of the CRJ-900 on Monday. (U.S. National Transportation Safety Board/Reuters)

Flight attendant Solange Tremblay was among them. She was ejected with her seat from the plane and found by first responders near the wreckage, her daughter Sarah Lepine, told The Canadian Press.

Lepine said she spoke to her mother on Monday morning before Tremblay went in for surgery, with multiple fractures in her right leg.

“It’s a miracle she is alive,” Lepine told the newswire in a direct message exchange.

Cabot, a New Yorker, concurred that the flight attendant’s survival seemed incredible, based on the amount of damage to the front end of the plane.

Like Lelièvre, Cabot said the pilots “did the absolute best they could and I just, I’m forever going be thankful for that.”
WATCH | Passenger praises pilots: 

Air Canada passenger describes LaGuardia plane crash

March 23|

Duration7:02

Joe Capio and his fiancé were returning from Montreal on Air Canada flight 8646 when it collided with a fire truck on the tarmac at New York’s LaGuardia airport. He tells CBC News chief correspondent Adrienne Arsenault about their frantic efforts to evacuate the plane.