The flight attendant who was ejected from the Air Canada plane that crashed into a fire truck at LaGuardia Airport was seen in her hospital bed for the first time since the accident.
Solange Tremblay, a 26-year veteran flight attendant, was shown in photos shared in a GoFundMe page by her daughter, Sarah Lepine, launched to support her medical treatment.
“My mother, Solange Tremblay, was the senior flight attendant aboard this flight,” Lepine wrote. “She was sitting in her jump seat in the forward cabin of the plane, directly behind the cockpit. During the crash she was when she ejected over 320 feet from the wreckage. She was found still strapped in her jump seat lying on the tarmac.
“My mom was conscious for all of this, and has sustained severe injuries from this event. She continues to fight and recover at a hospital in New York.”
Lepine confirmed that her mother suffered two shattered legs (open fractures) which required “multiple surgeries where metal plates are needed to repair the damage done to her legs,” a fractured spine “where she continues to wait and see if surgery is required” and “requires skin graphs to repair the missing flesh she lost on her legs while sliding down the tarmac,” having already received a blood transfusion “due to complications from her first surgery.”
Mackenzie Gunther and Antoine Forrest were identified as the pilot and co-pilot killed in the crash and 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 via CBS News.
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.
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