NYC Airport Crash: Air Canada Plane Collides with Fire Truck – ATC Audio Released
Two pilots died and dozens were injured after an Air Canada Express plane collided with a Port Authority fire truck on the runway at New York’s LaGuardia Airport late Sunday, triggering a major investigation and disrupting air travel. The incident occurred at 23:40 local time as Air Canada flight AC8646, operated by Jazz Aviation, was landing after a flight from Montreal.
Audio recordings from the LaGuardia air traffic control tower reveal a controller urgently instructing, “Truck one, stop, stop, stop!” moments before the impact, according to reporting by CTV News. The fire truck had been dispatched minutes earlier to respond to a report of a “smell” on another aircraft, according to Kathryn Garcia, the director of the Port Authority.
The pilots have been identified as Antoine Forest, 30, of Coteau-du-Lac, Quebec, and Mackenzie Gunther, according to sources cited by CBC News. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) administrator Bran Bedford described the pilots as “two young men at the start of their careers,” calling the loss “an absolute tragedy.”
Forty-one people were transported to local hospitals with injuries, some serious, following the collision. A CBS News report detailed that a flight attendant was found alive but trapped in her seat after being thrown through a hole in the aircraft’s floor during the impact, sustaining serious but non-life-threatening injuries.
Passengers described a jarring impact and chaotic scene. Rebecca Liquori, who was on the arriving flight from Montreal, told News12 Long Island that the plane experienced turbulence during descent and then “landed very roughly… Everyone felt it. It was like the plane jolted and you heard the pilot endeavor to brake trying to prevent the collision.” Another passenger, Jack Cabot, told CNN, “We were doing a normal landing, and then we just hit something and it was chaos from there… Everyone was ducking and everyone was screaming.” Leo Medina, who was on a different plane preparing for takeoff, said the impact made it look “like the plane got cut in half.”
The crash prompted the temporary closure of LaGuardia Airport, causing hundreds of flights to be delayed or cancelled. The airport reopened Monday afternoon, but the investigation is expected to continue for some time. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has recovered both the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder, and is analyzing the data, according to CBC News. NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy confirmed that a team arrived on scene shortly after 03:00 local time Monday and has begun documenting a “substantial amount of debris.”
U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, after visiting the crash site, emphasized the importance of wearing seatbelts, stating, “As you see from last night, they do save lives.” New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani described the incident as a “tragic collision” and praised the swift response of emergency personnel.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called the crash “deeply saddening,” and former U.S. President Donald Trump described it as a “horrendous” and “dangerous situation.” The NTSB investigation is ongoing, with no preliminary findings released as of Tuesday, March 24, 2026.