Clément Lelièvre, a French national and frequent flyer, says the pilots of the Air Canada jet that collided with a fire truck on a runway at New York’s LaGuardia Airport likely saved his life and the lives of other passengers late Sunday night.
The pilot and co-pilot of Flight AC8646 were killed in the collision, which sent 41 people to the hospital and injured others, like Lelièvre, who were treated at the scene.
“Just as the plane touched down, the pilot braked extremely hard,” Lelièvre told The Canadian Press on Monday.
“I don’t know the circumstances, but I think he kind of saved our lives because he must have had incredible reflexes.”
Video: ‘I messed up’: LaGuardia air traffic controller on radio after fatal collision
Disaster struck shortly after 11:30 p.m. Sunday as the plane — operated by Air Canada Express carrier Jazz Aviation — touched down after its journey from Montréal Trudeau International Airport. Of the 41 people transported to two hospitals in Queens, nine were still in care, including some in serious condition, Kathryn Garcia, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, told a news conference early Monday morning.
Video: Air Canada focusing its efforts on needs of passengers and crew members: CEO
In the moments before the collision, a firefighting truck was responding to a separate incident on a United Airlines flight that had aborted its takeoff and reported a strange odour on board. Air traffic control recordings suggested the odour on the plane had made some flight attendants feel ill. LaGuardia controllers were also mobilizing a stair truck in case the plane needed to let people off.
One air traffic control could be heard on a radio transmission giving clearance to a vehicle to cross part of the tarmac, then trying to stop it.
“Stop, Truck 1. Stop,” the transmission says. The controller can then be heard frantically diverting incoming aircraft from landing.
In the aftermath of the collision, one staffer sought to console another. “That wasn’t good to watch,” says one.
“I know. I tried to reach out,” says the second person. “We were dealing with an emergency earlier.”
“You did the best you could,” says the first.
Garcia deferred additional questions about the sequence of events leading up to the crash to investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board.
Video: Recap of fatal Air Canada crash in New York
Lelièvre said passengers escaped through emergency exit doors, hopping off the wings to the ground. Everyone helped each other get out, he said. He had injuries to his head and knee that were treated on the tarmac. Lelièvre said he saw passengers bleeding, some with head injuries.
“Strangely enough, I wasn’t scared or panicked. On the contrary, I think most of us were pretty aware of what happened. So we all went outside, we got other people out,” Lelièvre said.
“At the time, it was OK, but then around 4 or 5 in the morning, when the adrenaline had worn off a bit, we realized that this doesn’t happen every day.”
Photos from the scene showed the jetliner on the ground, surrounded by red rescue vehicles, in the glare of portable floodlights. It sat on its tail, its crumpled nose pointed toward the sky, the cockpit peeled back all the way back to the side windows, exposing a shredded tangle of wires and flight controls.
Stairways used to evacuate passengers from the aircraft were seen pushed up to the emergency exits on the white jet. A heavily damaged neon yellow fire truck was seen nearby, lying on its side.
Two Port Authority employees travelling in the fire truck suffered non-life-threatening injuries, Garcia said.
In a statement, Air Canada said it has officials en route to LaGuardia to assist in the investigation, adding, “We are deeply saddened by the loss of two Jazz employees, and our deepest condolences go out to the entire Jazz community and their families.”
Designed to carry 76 to 90 passengers on short- and medium-haul routes, the CRJ-900 is considered a workhorse feeder jet, traditionally linking regions to larger hub airports. The aircraft has a narrow, long fuselage, two rear-mounted turbofan engines and a T-shaped tail — the horizontal stabilizer sits high on the vertical fin.
Early Monday, some passengers who had arrived at LaGuardia hours before their flights, hoping to beat security lines during the ongoing government funding lapse, straggled out of the airport and rebooked for Tuesday. Others were hastening to other airports, as far as Long Island MacArthur in suburban Ronkonkoma, to try to catch their flights.
Garcia said the airport was to remain closed until at least 2 p.m. Monday to facilitate the investigation, which was being led by the U.S. Transportation Safety Board. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada said Monday it was deploying a team of investigators to support the American agency.
On social media, Canadian Transport Minister Steven McKinnon wrote that Canada is working closely with U.S. authorities as they investigate. “Aviation safety remains our highest priority,” he said.
Eyewitness accounts
Flight attendant Solange Tremblay was ejected from her seat on the plane and found by first responders near the wreckage, said her daughter, Sarah Lépine.
Lépine spoke to Tremblay, who has worked for the airline for more than 20 years, on Monday before her mother went in for surgery, with multiple fractures in her right leg.
“It’s a miracle she is alive,” Lépine told The Canadian Press in a direct message exchange. “She was found about 100 metres (away), still strapped in her seat.”
Passengers escaped through emergency exit doors, Lelièvre said, hopping off the wings to the ground. Everyone helped each other get out, he said.
“Strangely enough, I wasn’t scared or panicked,” Lelièvre said. “On the contrary, I think most of us were pretty aware of what happened. So we all went outside, we got other people out.”
Video: Air Canada passenger recalls the moment plane crashed into fire truck
Of the more than 40 people transported to two hospitals, nine were still in care Monday morning, officials said.
The employees in the fire truck suffered non-life-threatening injuries. One was released Monday afternoon, while the other was kept overnight for observation.
Photos from the scene showed the jetliner on the ground, surrounded by red rescue vehicles. It sat on its tail, its crumpled nose pointed toward the sky, the cockpit peeled all the way back to the side windows, exposing a shredded tangle of wires and flight controls.
A heavily damaged neon yellow fire truck was seen nearby, lying on its side.
Jennifer Homendy, chair of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, described a “tremendous amount of debris” at the scene. She provided a few details about initial findings but said the cockpit voice recorder was retrieved undamaged.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada will also be taking part in the investigation.
Christopher Pal, a professor at Polytechnique Montreal, was among the passengers who managed to escape the plane, his wife Sarah Dorner said. His glasses were broken when he smashed his face into the seat in front of him, she said.
Dorner’s husband called shortly after the crash. She said Pal told her he was encouraging passengers to evacuate more quickly because there was a smell of gas in the air.
“He said he was standing outside saying, ‘Come on, I’ll catch you. Just slide down. I’ll catch you. I’m here for you,” Dorner said. “I could hear it in his voice that it was quite a shocking event, but he was pleased that he was able to to help other people out.”
Coming investigation
Bryan Bedford, administrator with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, said it was an “absolute tragedy.” During a Monday news conference, he described the two pilots as “young men at the start of their careers.”
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said it was an aviation disaster that hasn’t been seen at LaGuardia in more than three decades. It is also a “deeply human story where two young pilots left their homes expecting to return to their families, and they will not,” she added.
The crash has brought into focus the increasing pressures on air traffic controllers in the United States. There are long-standing staffing shortages, a demanding work environment and repeated government shutdowns that have left them without pay.
Video: U.S. has pledged to co-operate with Canada on Air Canada N.Y. crash investigation
Sean Duffy, U.S. Secretary of Transportation, declined to say how many air traffic controllers were on duty at the time of the collision. He said, “As our airports go, LaGuardia is a very well-staffed airport.”
LaGuardia, he said, has a staffing target of 37 air traffic controllers. Currently, 33 are certified, and seven are in training.
The Trump administration wants to “modernize our system,” Duffy said, but it can’t do that without more congressional funds.
Traffic resumes at LaGuardia Airport
LaGuardia is one of the three major airports serving the New York City region.
It is extremely busy given its proximity to Manhattan.
Travellers returned to the airport, located in the borough of Queens, just before flight traffic resumed around 2 p.m. Monday.
At Terminal B — where Air Canada and other airlines are located — some travellers arrived for rescheduled flights, but digital boards showed many others remained cancelled.
The Air Canada desks didn’t have any travellers asking questions. Groups of employees dressed in black, red and white remained huddled at their stations.
— With files from Aaron Sousa, Nick Murray, Dean Bennett and The Associated Press
The report by The Canadian Press was first published on March 23, 2026.