Updated March 23, 2026 @ 8:01pm
Clément Lelièvre says the pilots of the Air Canada jet that collided with a fire truck on a runway at New York’s LaGuardia Airport likely saved his life and the lives of other passengers late Sunday night.
The pilot and co-pilot of Flight AC8646 were killed in the collision, which sent more than 40 people to hospital and injured others, like Lelièvre, who were treated at the scene.
"Just as the plane touched down, the pilot braked extremely hard," Lelièvre, a French national and frequent flyer, told The Canadian Press on Monday.
"I don't know the circumstances, but I think he kind of saved our lives because he must have had incredible reflexes."
A number of media outlets, including the Toronto Star and CBC, have identified one of the pilots as Antoine Forest, the first officer 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.
The Town of Coteau-du-Lac also posted a message of condolence on Facebook to Forest's family and friends.
The collision occurred around 11:45 p.m. on Sunday, when a CRJ-900 operated by Air Canada Express carrier Jazz Aviation touched down on runway four at LaGuardia after its journey from Montréal 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 and reported a strange odour on board.
Air traffic control recordings suggested the odour on the plane had made some flight attendants feel ill, and LaGuardia controllers were also mobilizing a stair truck in case the plane needed to let people off. 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 of the collision, 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.
Of the more than 40 people transported to two hospitals in Queens, nine were still in care on Monday morning, Kathryn Garcia, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, told reporters.
Flight attendant Solange Tremblay was ejected with her seat from the plane and found by first responders near the wreckage, said her daughter Sarah Lépine.
She said she spoke to her mother on Monday morning before Tremblay went in for surgery, with multiple fractures in her right leg.
"Yes, it's a miracle she is alive," Lépine told The Canadian Press in a direct message exchange. "She was found about 100 metres (away), still strapped in her seat." She added that Tremblay has worked for the airline for more than 20 years and was one of four crew members on the flight.
Lelièvre said passengers escaped through emergency exit doors, hopping off the wings to the ground. Everyone helped each other get out, he said. He had injuries to his head and knee that were treated on the tarmac. Lelièvre said he saw passengers bleeding, some with head injuries.
"Well, strangely enough, I wasn't scared or panicked. On the contrary, I think most of us were pretty aware of what happened. So we all went outside, we got other people out," Lelièvre said.
"At the time, it was OK, but then around 4 or 5 in the morning, when the adrenalin had worn off a bit, we realized that this doesn't happen every day."
Photos from the scene showed the jetliner on the ground, surrounded by red rescue vehicles, in the glare of portable floodlights. It sat on its tail, its crumpled nose pointed toward the sky, the cockpit peeled back all the way back to the side windows, exposing a shredded tangle of wires and flight controls.
Stairways used to evacuate passengers from aircraft were seen pushed up to the emergency exits on the white jet. A heavily damaged neon yellow fire truck was seen nearby, lying on its side.
The two port authority employees travelling in the fire truck suffered non-life-threatening injuries. Later in the day, Garcia said one of the employees would likely be released from hospital Monday afternoon and the other would be kept overnight for observation.
Christopher Pal, a professor at Polytechnique Montreal, was among the passengers who managed to escape the plane after the crash, his wife Sarah Dorner said in an interview. "He lost his glasses, he smashed his face into the seat in front of him," Dorner said, describing his injuries as some bruising around his eyes.
She said her husband called her shortly after the crash and told her how another passenger opened an emergency door near the wing.
"So he was able to climb onto the wing and slide off the wing to get off," Dorner said. "There was there's still a drop, so some of the passengers were hesitating because not everyone is in the shape that you would like to just jump off of a wing."
Dorner said Pal was encouraging them to evacuate at a quicker pace and 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."
Garcia and other officials referred questions about what caused the crash to the National Transportation Safety Board, the federal agency investigating the collision.
During an afternoon news conference at LaGuardia, Bryan Bedford, administrator with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, described the two pilots as "young men at the start of their careers, so it's an absolute tragedy that we're sitting here with their loss."
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul offered her condolences to the families of the two pilots. "Yes, it was an aviation disaster, the likes of which we have not seen here in over three decades, but is a deeply human story where two young pilots left their homes expecting to return to their families and they will not."
"And this is what pains everyone here in the state of New York."
Hochul ended her statement to reporters by reminding that air traffic controllers and other airport employees are under "tremendous stress." Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have been deployed to select airports across the country, where they are meant to help mitigate long lines fuelled by staffing shortfalls caused by a partial government shutdown.
Sean Duffy, U.S. secretary of transportation, referred to the countrywide shortages of controllers, noting that the Trump administration wants to "modernize our system" but can't do that without more money from Congress. LaGuardia, he said, has a staffing target of 37 air traffic controllers and that 33 are certified and employed, with seven in training.
"As our airports go, LaGuardia is a very well-staffed airport," Duffy said.
Designed to carry 76 to 90 passengers for short- and medium-haul routes, the CRJ-900 is considered a workhorse feeder jet traditionally linking regions to bigger hub airports. The aircraft has a narrow, long fuselage, two-rear mounted turbofan engines and a T-shaped tail — the horizontal stabilizer sits high on the vertical fin.
LaGuardia reopened for flight traffic around 2 p.m. At Terminal B — where Air Canada and a few other airlines are located — it was bustling again with travellers Monday afternoon. Many were arriving for rescheduled flights after all travel was halted following the crash. Some of the digital boards displaying flights showed that many remained cancelled.
The Air Canada desks didn’t have any travellers asking questions but groups of employees dressed in black, red and white remained huddled at their stations. Some groups of travellers slept on the floor surrounded by luggage.
LaGuardia is one of the three major airports serving the New York City region. Located in the borough of Queens, it sits on the edge of Flushing Bay, east of Manhattan, with two main intersecting runways. It is extremely busy given its proximity to Manhattan and handles a heavy load of mostly domestic flights.
LaGuardia was 19th busiest in 2024 out of more than 500 U.S. airports, with over 16.7 million passengers boarding there, according to a 2025 FAA database.
The report by The Canadian Press was first published March 23, 2026.
— With files from The Associated Press
