Incident location, Long Island
What Happened
Air Canada flight AC8646 collided with a fire truck on a runway at LaGuardia Airport late Sunday night, killing both pilots and injuring 41 people in a devastating crash that shut down one of the nation’s busiest airports until Monday afternoon. The collision occurred at 23:40 local time on Sunday (03:40 GMT on Monday) as the flight from Montreal was landing at the New York airport.
Antoine Forest, 30, a Quebec native, was identified as one of the Air Canada pilots who died in the collision, according to Canadian media reports. The other pilot has not yet been named. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) administrator Bran Bedford said at a news conference that “these were two young men at the start of their career, so it’s an absolute tragedy.”
Passenger Rebecca Liquori, who was aboard the flight when it struck the truck, described the terrifying sequence of events to News12 Long Island. “As we were descending, we hit a lot of turbulence,” she said. “Then we landed very roughly… Everyone felt it. It was like the plane jolted and you heard the pilot try to brake trying to prevent the collision.” Liquori continued, “As you heard the brake, a couple seconds later it was just a very loud boom. Everybody jolted out of their seats.”
The crash left 41 people injured and requiring hospitalization, with some sustaining serious injuries, though many have since been released. Two people in the fire engine that collided with the plane were also hospitalized. In a remarkable survival story, CBS News reported that a flight attendant was found alive strapped into her seat after falling through a hole in the aircraft’s floor during the crash, suffering serious but non-life threatening injuries.
Audio from the air traffic control tower captured the desperate moments before impact, with a staff member heard saying “Truck One, stop, stop, stop!” in the seconds before the crash. The fire truck had been dispatched minutes earlier to respond to another aircraft that “reported an issue with odour,” according to Port Authority executive director Kathryn Garcia.
Passenger Jack Cabot described the chaotic aftermath to CNN: “We went down for a regular landing. We immediately hit something and it was just chaos from there … Everybody was hunkered down and everybody was screaming.” Liquori described passengers helping each other escape by sliding down the aircraft’s wing. “I’m just happy to be alive,” she said. “I would have never pictured a one-hour flight that I’ve done countless times … ending like this.”
Leo Medina, 23, witnessed the crash from another plane positioned approximately 100 meters away on the tarmac. “It was like the plane got cut in half,” he told the BBC. His plane returned to the gate, and he spent more than 12 hours stranded in the airport, sleeping on the floor using jackets as bedding. Katie Rojas, 26, whose Chicago-bound flight was on the runway ready for departure when the crash occurred, said: “It’s scary. You never know if it could have been one of us.”
US Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy visited the crash site and emphasized the life-saving importance of seat belts during his news conference. “As you see from last night, they do save lives,” Duffy said, noting how the safety devices prevented additional fatalities in both aircraft and other transportation modes.
Location & Road Context
LaGuardia Airport, located in Queens, New York, serves as one of the busiest airports in the United States and a critical transportation hub for the New York metropolitan area and Long Island region. The runway collision occurred during nighttime operations when visibility and communication become even more critical for safe airport operations.
The crash caused widespread travel disruption at LaGuardia, with hundreds of flights delayed or cancelled as the airport remained closed until Monday afternoon. This marked the first fatal incident at LaGuardia Airport in more than 34 years, according to airport officials who spoke on Monday.
Investigation & Legal Proceedings
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) launched an immediate investigation into the collision, with chairwoman Jennifer Homendy confirming that investigators arrived at the crash site just after 03:00 local time on Monday. The NTSB team completed a walking inspection of the scene, though Homendy emphasized the probe remains in preliminary stages.
Investigators are analyzing the aircraft’s cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder, both of which survived the crash without damage. “There is a tremendous amount of debris in the area that they have to document, collect and process as evidence,” Homendy explained, adding that the runway will remain closed during the investigation process.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani described the incident as a “tragic collision” and praised first responders “whose swift actions saved lives.” He also commended passengers and crew members “who were thrust into a frightening accident and reacted not only with composure, but by extending a hand to the person next to them.”
Broader Impact
The investigation faced significant delays due to ongoing Transportation Security Administration (TSA) staffing shortages caused by a month-long government shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security. NTSB investigators experienced the same security delays plaguing travelers, with Homendy revealing that one air traffic control specialist waited three hours in TSA lines before officials intervened. “We have one air traffic control specialist who was in line with TSA for three hours until we called in Houston to beg to see if we can get her through, so we can get her here,” Homendy said. “So it’s been a really, really big challenge to get the entire team here, and they’re still arriving as I speak.” A TSA agent at LaGuardia told the BBC that while some colleagues have called out sick amid the ongoing shutdown and unpaid work requirements, “for the most part people are trying to show up to work,” highlighting how the government shutdown was impacting both routine airport operations and critical accident investigations.
Both Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and US President Donald Trump issued statements about the tragedy, with Carney calling the crash “deeply saddening” and Trump describing it as “terrible” and noting that aviation “is a dangerous business.”