A devastating late-night collision between a passenger jet and a fire truck at New York’s LaGuardia Airport on Sunday ended with two pilots dead, yet most people on board somehow survived.
Antoine Forest, the pilot, and co-pilot Mackenzie Gunther were killed. However, 72 passengers lived through the roughly 100mph impact at the busy airport, and 41 were taken to hospital afterward.
The incident occurred at about 11.40pm when a Bombardier CRJ-900 arriving from Montreal struck a New York Port Authority fire truck. The vehicle had been told by air traffic control to clear the runway.
Survivors said the collision violently threw people around inside the cabin. In the immediate aftermath, passengers were left to locate and operate emergency exits on their own because the front flight attendant was no longer in the aircraft—she had been ejected while still strapped into her seat, landing roughly 300ft away across the tarmac.
Despite being hurled from the plane at speed, stewardess Solange Tremblay reportedly suffered just one major injury: a fractured leg.
How she survived remains difficult to explain, but a former crash investigator pointed to the equipment she was secured in as a likely life-saving factor.
Former federal plane crash investigator, Jeff Guzzetti, told the New York Post that the foldable ‘jump seat’ used by cabin crew during takeoff and landing probably played a crucial role.
“The flight attendant’s seat is kind of a jump seat that folds down and is bolted to the wall, the same wall that the cockpit utilizes.”
Guzzetti said the design is built to take extreme forces and uses a four-point harness to keep an occupant restrained.
“It’s designed to withstand probably more crash loads than passenger seats because you need the flight attendant to help passengers get out of an airplane after a crash.”
Even if the strengthened seat helps clarify why she lived, questions remain about how the seat and Tremblay were propelled nearly 330ft from the wreckage while her injuries were comparatively limited.
Tremblay’s daughter told Canadian media that her mother’s survival was a ‘total miracle’.
“I’m still trying to understand how all this happened. But she definitely has a guardian angel watching over her.”
A nurse who was aboard the plane also told the New York Times that the absence of a flight attendant in the critical first moments left passengers without guidance.
“Unfortunately the flight attendant that was in the front, she got ejected from the plane so we really did not have direction. I did what I was instructed at the beginning of the flight.”
Passengers then worked together to open the exits, climbing onto a wing before jumping down to the ground.
The National Transportation Safety Board is continuing to investigate what caused the crash.