The two Air Canada pilots killed when a plane crashed into a fire truck at LaGuardia Airport have been identified as Antoine Forest and Mackenzie Gunther.
Local media reported Forest was 30-years-old and from Québec, while Gunther graduated from Seneca Polytechnic in Toronto in 2023.
The incident, which happened at 23:40 local time on Sunday (03:40 GMT on Monday), left 41 people injured who were taken to the hospital and temporarily shut down New York’s LaGuardia Airport until Monday afternoon.
These were two young men at the start of their career, so it's an absolute tragedy that we're sitting here with their loss, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) administrator Bran Bedford said.
Forest had learned to fly bush planes in Saguenay in 2018 before being hired by Air Canada in December 2022, the Toronto Star reported. His great aunt, Jeannette Gagnier, expressed her grief, recalling how he practiced his English to pursue a piloting career.
Gunther joined Air Canada after graduating from Seneca Polytechnic, which has announced that flags on its campus would be lowered to half-mast in memory of him.
In a twist of fate, Air Canada flight attendant Solange Tremblay survived miraculously, ejected from the plane and found alive over a hundred meters from the wreckage. She suffered multiple fractures but is recovering.
Reports indicate an air traffic controller warned a fire truck to stop just seconds before the collision. Investigators are probing the final moments of cockpit recordings and communications, revealing that both the plane and the fire truck had been cleared to cross the runway simultaneously.
NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy emphasized that the inquiry is ongoing and highlights urgent problems with the air traffic control system, which needs modernization to prevent such tragedies in the future.
