The miraculous survival of Air Canada flight attendant during crash at New York airport

A miraculous survival occurred on the Air Canada flight that crashed into a fire truck at LaGuardia Airport in the United States on Sunday night (March 22). A flight attendant, who was violently thrown from the plane during the collision, survived the mishap.

Reports say that the flight attendant was found outside the plane on the ground still strapped to her seat. Her daughter called the incident a “total miracle”.

Let’s take a closer look.

Air Canada flight collides with fire truck on runway

Air Canada flight AC8646 collided with a firefighter truck on the ground after landing at New York’s LaGuardia airport on Sunday night.

The Jazz Aviation flight, operated on behalf of Air Canada, hit a Port Authority vehicle at LaGuardia Airport, killing two pilots and injuring dozens of others.

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The plane, carrying 72 passengers and four crew, had departed from Canada’s Montreal that evening. The pilot and copilot were confirmed dead and 41 passengers and crew were shifted to the hospital, along with two vehicle officers.

Thirty-two people have since been released, reported NBC News.

The pilots who died were identified as Antoine Forest and MacKenzie Gunther, as per Radio-Canada sources.

The firefighting truck was responding to a separate incident and was crossing the runway at the time of the collision.

The Air Canada regional jet was travelling at approximately 100 mph. The front end of the plane bore the brunt of the impact, compressing the nose and cockpit. The truck flipped over down the runway following the crash.

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Port Authority Executive Director Kathryn Garcia said that the “vehicle was responding to another aircraft, operated by United [Airlines], that had reported an issue with odour”.

She later said that “a pilot, who had had multiple attempts at take-off, requested support. They were responding to that request.”

Garcia said two people who were in the firetruck that collided with the passenger plane are in stable condition at the hospital, according to CNN.

LaGuardia Airport was shut down following the mishap and reopened at 1400 (1800 GMT or 11:30 PM IST) on Monday.

Flight attendant’s miraculous survival

A flight attendant was found alive in a jump seat by rescuers after being ejected from the ill-fated Air Canada flight. The seat had reportedly fallen through the floor of the damaged plane.

The survivor, identified as Solange Tremblay from Quebec, was seated towards the front of the passenger plane. She got wounded in the accident but is expected to survive.
She got thrown with her seat more than a hundred metres (300 ft) from the plane, suffering multiple fractures.

“It’s a complete miracle,” the flight attendant’s daughter, Sarah Lépine, told Quebec outlet TVA Nouvellas.

“At the moment of impact, her seat was ejected more than a [300 feet] from the plane,” Lépine said of her mom.

“They found her, and she was still strapped into her seat. She had a guardian angel watching over her. It could have been much worse.”

According to the daughter, her mother sustained multiple injuries, including a broken leg.
Tremblay is being treated and will undergo surgery for a broken leg, Lépine added.

Investigation on

The Air Canada crash is being investigated by the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), with help from local and international agencies, including the Transportation Safety Board of Canada.

Officials from NTSB were captured at the scene of the accident investigating the incident. The NTSB also shared a picture of the investigators examining the damaged plane.

“The National Transportation Safety Board is on site. The Port Authority Police Department is working closely with our airline partners as well as federal authorities, and will provide additional updates as more details become available,” a Port Authority spokesperson confirmed in a statement to PEOPLE.

While the investigation is underway, sources told New York Post that, preliminarily, both the plane and the fire truck were given clearance by air traffic control simultaneously to use the runway.

Moments before the crash, an air traffic controller could be heard on a radio transmission allowing a vehicle to cross part of the tarmac, then hurriedly attempting to stop it, reported KGW8.

“Stop, stop, stop, stop!” the controller implored the fire-truck driver. “Truck 1, stop, stop, stop! Stop, Truck 1! Stop!”

“Jazz 646, I see you collided with the vehicle. Just hold position. I know you can’t move. Vehicles are responding to you now.”

Air Canada President and CEO Michael Rousseau expressed his deepest sorrow following the crash in a video statement on social media, calling it a “very sombre day at Air Canada”.

Rousseau said there were many questions at this early stage and they did not have all the answers, adding that the circumstances are still being assessed.

The National Transportation Safety Board will determine whether bad communication from air traffic control is behind the crash.

With inputs from agencies