Two pilots flying Air Canada jet killed in collision with fire truck at N.Y. airport

NEW YORK -- Clement Lelievre remembers the pilot hitting the breaks suddenly. His head hit the seat ahead of him. Then it looked like everything at the front of the aircraft was collapsing.

Lelievre credits the pilots of the Air Canada flight from Montreal to New York’s LaGuardia Airport with likely saving his life and the lives of other passengers late Sunday night.

The pilot and co-pilot of Flight AC8646 were killed when the plane collided with an airport fire truck. More than 40 people were sent to hospital and others, like Lelievre, had their injuries treated at the scene.

• ‘I messed up’: Read the transcript from the N.Y. plane collision

“I don’t know the circumstances, but I think he kind of saved our lives because he must have had incredible reflexes,” Lelievre, a French national, told The Canadian Press.

A number of media outlets, including the Toronto Star and CBC, have identified one pilot as Antoine Forest, from Coteau-du-Lac, Que., southwest of Montreal by the boundary with Ontario.

Forest used to fly smaller bush planes for another company, his great-aunt told the Star.

A social media tribute Monday by Cedric Forest, who wrote that he was the pilot’s brother, features a photo of two young boys on a roller-coaster.

Forest said his brother was always thinking of his next adventure and encouraged him to “have a good flight.”

“We’ve heard that phrase often, but this time it will be the last,” the post says in French. “You left us again, too soon to say goodbye. I love you, my brother.”

Seneca Polytechnic identified the other pilot as Mackenzie Gunther, an alumnus of the Toronto-based school.

It said in a statement on its website that Gunther joined the Air Canada Express carrier Jazz Aviation immediately after graduating from the school’s aviation technology program in 2023.

The collision occurred around 11:45 p.m. on Sunday, when a CRJ-900 operated by Jazz Aviation touched down on runway four at LaGuardia after its journey from Montreal Trudeau International Airport. There were 72 passengers and four crew members on board.

In the moments before the collision, a firefighting truck was responding to a separate incident on a United Airlines flight that had aborted its takeoff after reporting a strange odour on board.

One air traffic controller could be heard on a radio transmission giving clearance to a vehicle to cross part of the tarmac -- then trying to stop it.

“Stop, Truck 1. Stop,” the transmission says. The controller can then be heard frantically diverting incoming aircraft from landing.

In the aftermath, one staffer sought to console another. “That wasn’t good to watch,” says one.

“I know. I tried to reach out,” says the second person. “We were dealing with an emergency earlier.”

“You did the best you could,” says the first.

Flight attendant Solange Tremblay was ejected with her seat from the plane and found by first responders near the wreckage, said her daughter Sarah Lepine.

Lepine spoke to Tremblay, who has worked for the airline for more than 20 years, on Monday before her mother went in for surgery, with multiple fractures in her right leg.

“It’s a miracle she is alive,” Lepine told The Canadian Press in a direct message exchange. “She was found about 100 metres (away), still strapped in her seat.”

Passengers escaped through emergency exit doors, Lelievre said, hopping off the wings to the ground. Everyone helped each other get out, he said.

“Strangely enough, I wasn’t scared or panicked,” Lelievre said. “On the contrary, I think most of us were pretty aware of what happened. So we all went outside, we got other people out.”

Of the more than 40 people transported to two hospitals, nine were still in care Monday morning, officials said.

The employees in the fire truck suffered non-life-threatening injuries. One was released Monday afternoon, while the other was kept overnight for observation.

Photos from the scene showed the jetliner on the ground, surrounded by red rescue vehicles. It sat on its tail, its crumpled nose pointed toward the sky, the cockpit peeled all the way back to the side windows, exposing a shredded tangle of wires and flight controls.

A heavily damaged neon yellow fire truck was seen nearby, lying on its side.

Jennifer Homendy, chair of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, described a “tremendous amount of debris” at the scene. She provided few details about initial findings but said the cockpit voice recorder was retrieved undamaged.

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada will also be taking part in the investigation.

Christopher Pal, a professor at Polytechnique Montreal, was among the passengers who managed to escape the plane, his wife Sarah Dorner said. His glasses were broken when he smashed his face into the seat in front of him, she said.

Dorner’s husband called shortly after the crash. She said Pal told her he was encouraging passengers to evacuate at a quicker pace because there was a smell of gas in the air.

“He said he was standing outside saying, ‘Come on, I’ll catch you. Just slide down. I’ll catch you. I’m here for you,”’ Dorner said. “I could hear it in his voice that it was quite a shocking event, but he was pleased that he was able to to help other people out.”

Bryan Bedford, administrator with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, said it was an “absolute tragedy.” During a Monday news conference, he described the two pilots as “young men at the start of their careers.”

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said it was an aviation disaster that hasn’t been seen at LaGuardia in more than three decades. It is also a “deeply human story where two young pilots left their homes expecting to return to their families and they will not,” she added.

The crash has brought into focus the increasing pressures on air traffic controllers in the United States. There are long-standing staffing shortages, a demanding work environment and repeated government shutdowns that have left them without pay.

Sean Duffy, U.S. secretary of transportation, declined to say how many air traffic controllers were on duty at the time of the collision. He said “as our airports go, LaGuardia is a very well-staffed airport.”

LaGuardia, he said, has a staffing target of 37 air traffic controllers. Currently, 33 are certified and seven are in training.

The Trump administration wants to “modernize our system,” Duffy said, but it can’t do that without more congressional funds.

LaGuardia is one of the three major airports serving the New York City region. It is extremely busy given its proximity to Manhattan.

Travellers returned to the airport, located in the borough of Queens, just before flight traffic resumed around 2 p.m. Monday.

At Terminal B -- where Air Canada and other airlines are located -- some travellers arrived for rescheduled flights but digital boards showed many others remained cancelled.

The Air Canada desks didn’t have any travellers asking questions. Groups of employees dressed in black, red and white remained huddled at their stations.

By Kelly Geraldine Malone and Sidhartha Banerjee

With files from The Associated Press

The report by The Canadian Press was first published March 23, 2026.