The trouble for Air Canada Express Flight 8646 began with a problem on a different plane.
It was a misty Sunday night at New York’s LaGuardia Airport, almost midnight. As the Canadian regional jet flew from Montreal toward the airport, a United plane that hadn’t yet taken off from LaGuardia needed help: Flight attendants were feeling ill from a strong odor in the cabin, audio transcripts with air traffic controllers show.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey dispatched a fire and rescue truck to assist the United plane. Meanwhile, in the skies above, Air Canada passenger Rebecca Liquori was dozing in her seat by the exit row after a quick weekend trip to Montreal for a relative’s baby shower. The return flight had been delayed by a couple of hours, and Liquori, 35, of North Baldwin, New York, was exhausted.
An announcement on board woke Liquori. “If this flight has an emergency landing,” she recalled a flight attendant saying over the loudspeaker as the plane started descending, “don’t take your luggage with you. Just exit quickly.”
The descent was turbulent, the roughest she had experienced, said Liquori, a registered nurse. But the wheels touched down.
And then came the crash.
“It was like a grinding sound. Then, a couple seconds after that, you just felt the collision,” she said. “It was like the loudest boom I’ve ever heard.”
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Air traffic control staffing and the LaGuardia crash
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Flight 8646 and the fire truck collided on LaGuardia’s Runway 4 at around 11:45 p.m. Sunday, killing the two pilots and injuring about 40 people on board and two people in the truck, authorities say. The precise sequence of the collision and what caused it aren’t yet clear; aviation experts say investigators will look at the possibility of radio failures, failed runway crossing procedures and human error, among other factors.
In air traffic control audio recordings, a controller appears to have told the vehicle to cross the runway before then saying, “Truck 1, stop.” After the collision, an air traffic controller is heard on the audio saying: “I messed up.”
The Federal Aviation Administration, the National Transportation Safety Board and other agencies are investigating the crash, which tore off the nose of the aircraft, leaving mangled parts of the front of the plane dangling toward the ground.
After the crash, passengers were confused and screaming in panic, Liquori said. Some were bleeding.
“We didn’t know what was going on, if the plane was going to combust,” she said. “Everybody was scared. Everybody thought they were going to die.”
Liquori’s thoughts turned to her sons, who are 4 and 2 years old. She wondered whether she would hear them laugh again or get to tickle them again or ever come home to hear them ask, “Mommy, can I give you a hug?”
Sore from the jolt of the collision but determined to help passengers off the plane as quickly as possible, she opened the emergency exit.
“As a nurse, I know that in emergency situations, it’s kind of best to move with haste,” she said. Passengers streamed out, jumping off the wing. She estimated that she was off the jet within three or four minutes.
At a news conference Monday afternoon, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani praised emergency personnel for their quick response.
“I also want to commend those who were thrust into a frightening accident and reacted not only with composure, but by extending a hand to the person next to them, passengers who opened the emergency door and helped one another off the plane, people who kept one another calm,” he said.
Fatal air accidents are rare, especially at LaGuardia, one of the country’s busiest airports. Sunday’s collision happened 34 years to the day after a Cleveland-bound USAir flight crashed shortly after takeoff from the airport in 1992, killing 27 of the 51 people on board, including the pilot.
Officials haven’t released the identities of the two pilots who died Sunday. Liquori said she felt them brake to try to slow the plane down ahead of the crash, protecting the 72 passengers and four crew members as much as they could.
“I’m just so appreciative that they were able to save us, but I’m just so sad that they weren’t able to make it home to their families,” she said, her voice breaking. “I wouldn’t be here had it not been for the pilot acting quickly.”
Joseph, another passenger on the flight who asked to be identified by his first name only because of public speaking restrictions by his employer, was on the flight with his fiancée. He said they sustained minor injuries, including abrasions and bruising. Like Liquori, he credited the pilots with braking and saving people.
“I fully believe that these two pilots, who unfortunately lost their lives, did everything in their power to stop the plane and slow it down at the very last minute,” he said. “They deserve all the credit for being heroes that day.”
FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford expressed his sympathy to the pilots’ families at Monday’s news conference.
“These were two young men at the start of their careers,” Bedford said. “It’s an absolute tragedy.”
Liquori hasn’t been able to sleep since the crash. She said that every time she closes her eyes, she hears the sound of her fellow passengers screaming.
“This is surreal to me,” she said. “I’m just grateful to be alive.”