I was on the Air Canada flight that crashed at LaGuardia. I felt the plane lose control, and I ducked and prayed.

Jack Cabot was on Air Canada Flight AC8646 to LaGuardia Airport when it crashed upon landing.  TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP via Getty Images/Jack Cabot

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jack Cabot, a 22-year-old student at Ithaca College. The following has been edited for length and clarity.On March 22, I was coming back to New York from a short spring break trip to Calgary. My connecting flight back was through Montreal.There were a few moments of pretty bad turbulence in the air, but nothing crazy happened until the landing. That’s when everything went pretty haywire. The plane landed quite hard, and then two or three seconds later, I heard a really loud bang.

Everybody was terrified as the plane lost control

Everyone already seemed pretty annoyed when we boarded the flight to New York because it had already been delayed a few times. We left about two hours after our original departure time.

As we were landing, the plane started veering right really quickly. It felt like it had completely lost control. I put my head down, ducked between my arms, and prayed. There was a lot of screaming; everybody was terrified, and I was completely panicked.

When we finally came to a stop, I thought, “Okay, we’re somehow alive.” As I looked around, so many people were bleeding. One guy’s whole face was gashed up. It was clear that a lot of people were very hurt.

I was sitting in the middle area of the plane, a row in front of the emergency exit. When I looked toward the front of the plane, it seemed to have completely crumpled inward, like a wall of broken parts.

A woman behind me suggested we go out the emergency exit. I didn’t think the plane was a good place to be, so we all got in a line and headed out one by one. It wasn’t too big a plane, so we jumped onto the wing and then took another 4- or 5-foot drop onto the ground.

I feel grateful and lucky

It took two or three minutes for medical attention to arrive. I was only a little bruised up, but others were more seriously hurt. I feel really grateful and lucky.

After we got off the plane, we sat on a bus for three to four hours, then waited in a lounge. They were performing headcounts of the people there. I chose to talk with the police about what I saw, and I got out of the airport at around 4:30 a.m., even though we landed at around 11:30 p.m. My brother, whom I texted after we landed, picked me up from the airport. I got home around an hour later and went straight to bed.

I’m still planning to fly

I’ll be a little reluctant next time I have to get on a plane, but I’ll have to get over it. It would be really shocking if something like this happened twice.

To recover from what happened, I think I’ll need a few days of relaxation and some exposure therapy. I actually think flying more will help me get past this.

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

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.

Quebec resident among 2 pilots killed in crash at New York’s LaGuardia airport

Air traffic controller heard telling truck to stop moments before deadly Air Canada crash

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.

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.”