NEW YORK (AP) — Moments after an Air Canada jet collided at high speed with a fire truck at New York’s LaGuardia Airport, killing the pilots and hurling a flight attendant from the aircraft, the passengers took their escape into their own hands.
With the smell of fuel in the air and debris dangling from the obliterated cockpit, passengers tore open emergency exit doors, jumped off the plane’s wings and then turned around to catch others coming up behind them, some bleeding or with head wounds.
“Strangely enough, I wasn’t scared or panicked. On the contrary, I think most of us were pretty aware of what happened,” said passenger Clément Lelièvre. “So we all went outside; we got other people out.”
About 40 passengers and crew members on the regional jet from Montreal, and two people from the fire truck, were taken to hospitals. Some suffered serious injuries, but by Monday morning, most had been released, and others walked away without needing treatment.
As investigators continued delving Tuesday into what caused the catastrophic wreck, stories of survival also emerged — including that of the flight attendant, found injured but alive outside the aircraft.
Lelièvre credited the pilots’ “incredible reflexes” with saving lives. The pilots braked extremely hard just as the plane touched down, he said.
The collision late Sunday came after the fire truck was given permission to check on another plane that had aborted its takeoff after reporting an odor on board and started crossing the tarmac. An air traffic controller can be heard on airport communications frantically telling the fire truck to stop.
Roughly 20 minutes later, the controller appears to blame himself. “We were dealing with an emergency earlier,” the controller said. “I messed up.”
A key for investigators will be examining coordination of the airport’s air traffic and ground traffic at the time of the crash, said Mary Schiavo, a former Department of Transportation Inspector General.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said LaGuardia is “well-staffed” but faces a shortage of controllers.
The runway where the crash happened is likely to be closed for “days” during the investigation, Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, which is leading the investigation, said at a news conference Monday. Investigators need to sift through a lot of debris, she said.
Authorities recovered the plane’s cockpit and flight data recorders by cutting a hole in the aircraft’s roof and then drove them to the NTSB lab in Washington for analysis, Homendy said.
It was too early in the investigation to answer many questions about the accident, but more information was expected to be released Tuesday, she said.
The crash shut down LaGuardia — the New York region’s third busiest hub — during what was already a messy time at U.S. airports because of a partial government shutdown.
Flights resumed Monday afternoon on one runway and with lengthy delays. The shutdown caused some disruptions at other airports, too, especially for Delta, which has a major presence at LaGuardia.
There were 72 passengers and four crew members aboard the Jazz Aviation flight operating on behalf of Air Canada, according to the airline. The flight originated at Montreal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport. Canada has also sent a team of investigators.
The pilot and copilot who died in the first fatal crash at LaGuardia in 34 years were both based out of Canada, said Kathryn Garcia, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the airport.
Jeannette Gagnier, the great aunt of one of the pilots, identified him as Antoine Forest, and said he always wanted to be a pilot.
Air traffic controllers are not impacted by the partial government shutdown that has caused long delays at airport security checkpoints in recent days. They have been affected by past shutdowns.
The FAA has been chronically short on air traffic controllers for years.
LaGuardia is one of 35 major U.S. airports with an advanced surface surveillance system designed to help keep track of planes and vehicles crossing the airport.
An alarm heard in the background of the air traffic control audio was likely from the system and would have alerted the tower to the potential collision, Former FAA air traffic control chief Mike McCormick said.
FAA statistics show there were 1,636 runway incursions last year.
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Associated Press reporters Michael R. Sisak, Anthony Izaguirre and Mae Anderson in New York; Rob Gillies in Toronto; Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska; Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire; and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed.