Pilots killed in LaGuardia plane crash named

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Antoine Forest, 30, was identified as one of the pilots killed in the incident

The two pilots killed when an Air Canada plane crashed into a fire truck at LaGuardia Airport have been identified as Antoine Forest and Mackenzie Gunther.

Local media reported Forest was 30-years-old and from Québec, while Gunther graduated from Seneca Polytechnic in Toronto in 2023.

The incident, which happened at 23:40 local time on Sunday (03:40 GMT on Monday), injured 41 people who were taken to hospital and shut down the New York airport until Monday afternoon.

“These were two young men at the start of their career, so it’s an absolute tragedy that we’re sitting here with their loss,” Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) administrator Bran Bedford said.

Forest learned to fly bush planes in Saguenay in 2018, the Toronto Star reported. He was hired by Jazz Aviation in December 2022.

His great aunt, Jeannette Gagnier, told the newspaper that he and his brother would spend summers with her as he practised his English to become a pilot.

“It’s a very bad day for me…he was always taking courses and flying. He never stopped…he flew his first plane when he was 16-years-old,” she said.

Gunther graduated from Seneca, which said flags at the campus would be lowered to half-mast on Tuesday, before he was hired at Jazz.

“Seneca sends our deepest condolences to Mr Gunther’s family and friends, and to his former colleagues and professors. He will be deeply missed”, the college said in a statement.

The flight, operated by Air Canada Express carrier Jazz Aviation, originated in Montreal.

Reuters

Flight attendant Solange Tremblay from Quebec miraculously survived after being ejected from the plane and was found alive strapped to her seat more than a hundred metres (300ft) from the plane, suffering multiple fractures.

Her daughter, Sarah Lépine, told local broadcaster TVA Nouvelles on Monday she was seated behind the pilots when the plane landed.

TVA Nouvelles
Flight attendant Solange Tremblay

“It’s a complete miracle,” Lépine said. “She had a guardian angel watching over her. It could have been much worse.”

The two officers inside the fire truck that collided with the plane were also taken to hospital with injuries.

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What flight tracking data and air traffic audio tell us about the LaGuardia crash

An air traffic controller was heard saying: “‘Truck One, stop, stop, stop!” seconds before the crash.

Investigators on Tuesday released details from the final three minutes of cockpit voice recordings and tower communications, including that controllers had cleared both the plane and a fire truck to cross the runway.

National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy said the inquiry was ongoing and would include interviews with the two controllers on duty on Sunday night.

She also noted that a ground radar system that could have provided an alert before the collision failed to do so, and the truck lacked a transponder, that would have helped the radar system detect it.

Calling the US air traffic control system “old” and in need of an upgrade, Homendy urged against assigning blame.

“Controllers should have all the information and the tools to do their job,” she said. “You have to have information on the ground movements, whether that’s aircraft or vehicles… this is 2026.”

She added that air traffic controllers have long raised concerns about under-staffing, describing the tower as a “high-workload environment” where, when something goes wrong, “many things have gone wrong”.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story described the pilots and crew as working for Air Canada. They were employees of Jazz Aviation LP. The flight was operated by Jazz, which is an Air Canada Express carrier.