The two pilots killed after an Air Canada flight from Montreal collided with a fire truck at LaGuardia Airport in New York have been identified.
They are Antoine Forest, from Coteau-du-Lac, Que., southwest of Montreal, and Mackenzie Gunther, a 2023 alumnus of Toronto’s Seneca Polytechnic.
‘A great pilot’
Forest will forever be known as a “great pilot,” according to one Quebec couple, who tells Noovo Info they first met him in 2019 when he was “just a flying instructor" working for Air Saguenay.
Jean-Noël Bergeron, who previously worked as a ground agent overseeing aircraft maintenance, says he and his wife, Claudette Thibeault, were deeply affected upon hearing the news of the pilot’s death.
“To fly in the bush, you had to be good,” Bergeron said, recalling one particularly long flight to the northern part of the province with Forest in the pilot’s seat.
“We had Antoine at the base several times,” added Thibeault, who ran the restaurant at the Air Saguenay base near Monts-Valin.
She says she will remember Forest as this “little boy who was always friendly, always careful.”
“I could have been his mother,” she said. ”He was always such a friendly, super careful young man. He checked everything. Antoine was a wonderful person, truly.”
In response to the tragedy, the Town of Coteau-du-Lac, near the Ontario border, took to social media to send a message of condolence to Forest’s family and friends.
For its part, Seneca College confirmed Gunther joined Jazz Aviation soon after graduating from its aviation technology program in 2023.
Seneca noted flags at its campuses will be lowered to half-mast on Tuesday.
What happened?
The deadly plane collision occurred at 11:45 p.m. ET on Sunday, when a CRJ-900 operated by Jazz Aviation touched down on runway four with 72 passengers and four crew members on board.
On air traffic control radio, one controller is heard clearing an airport fire truck to cross part of the tarmac to respond to a different emergency.
He then desperately tries to halt the truck.
“Stop, stop, stop, truck one, stop, stop, stop,” he can be heard saying. “Stop, truck one, stop! Stop, truck one, stop.”
Passengers say they felt the pilot slamming on the brakes, causing many to hit the seat in front of them.
One flight attendant was thrown onto the tarmac while still strapped in her seat.
Forest and Gunther were killed, and more than 40 people were sent to hospital to be treated for various injuries; others were treated at the scene.
An investigation into the incident is underway, led by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and aided by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada.
The crash has spotlighted the increasing pressures on air traffic controllers in the United States.
With files by Noovo Info and The Canadian Press
Correction
An incorrect photograph incorrectly identifying Mackenzie Gunther was published earlier.
