The pilot and co-pilots of an Air Canada jet that crashed into a fire truck at LaGuardia Airport were identified.
Mackenzie Gunther and Antoine Forrest were described by Federal Aviation Administrator Brian Bedford as “two young men at the start of their careers” when they were killed on impact in the crash that also resulted in more than 40 others sustaining injuries.
“It’s an absolute tragedy that we’re sitting here with their loss,” Bedford added.
A female flight attendant was ejected through the front of the aircraft during the crash but managed to survive as Port Authority officers rescued her and brought her to a hospital, the sources said. The cockpit recorder on Air Canada Flight 8646 revealed its doomed final three minutes the crash Sunday night.
National Transportation Safety Board senior aviation investigator Doug Brazy shared a detailed recap of the moments leading up to the collision during an update on Tuesday (March 24) via the New York Post. The approach controller reportedly instructed the Air Canada pilots to contact LaGuardia tower 3 minutes and 7 seconds before touching down in New York and flight crew lowered the landing gear at 2 minutes, 45 seconds before the accident.
LaGuardia cleared the Air Canada jet to land on Runway 4, where the crash took place, and advised that it was second in line for landing 2 minutes, 27 seconds before the crash and its checklist for landing was complete at 1 minute, 12 seconds prior to the accident. An airport vehicle made a radio transmission to the tower, but it was blocked by another yet to be identified radio transmission at 1 minute, 3 seconds before the crash.
The fire truck requested to cross Runway 4, which the tower cleared, within 20 to 28 seconds before the crash. The tower instructed the truck to stop multiple times within the final 10 seconds before the crash occurred and the recording ended. The fire truck involved in a deadly collision with an Air Canada jet at New York’s LaGuardia Airport didn’t trigger an alarm prior to the accident, National Transportation Safety Board chairwoman Jennifer Homendy revealed during a press conference Tuesday via the Associated Press. Questions remain on why the fire truck was crossing the runway as the plane was landing and didn’t stop despite a last-second warning from air traffic control.
Homendy had previously confirmed that she will lead an investigation into “multiple failures” that likely resulted in the deadly crash during an appearance on FOX & Friends earlier on Tuesday.
“We have found in all of our investigations that it is not a single error that led to a terrible tragedy,” she said. “Our aviation system is incredibly safe and it takes multiple failures to occur for an accident like this.
“So we’re going to look very comprehensively.”
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