The Air Canada pilots who died Sunday when their plane collided with a fire truck at New York's LaGuardia Airport were early in their careers, The New York Times reported.
Antoine Forest and Mackenzie Gunther, both 30, died at the scene.
"These were two young men at the start of their career, so it's an absolute tragedy that we're sitting here with their loss," Bryan Bedford, head of the Federal Aviation Administration, said of the pilots at a news conference on Monday.
The jet, carrying more than 70 passengers, collided with a fire truck while landing at LaGuardia Airport.
The fire truck was crossing the tarmac just before midnight after being given permission to check on another plane that had aborted takeoff. Before the collision, an air traffic controller could be heard on airport communications frantically telling the fire truck to stop.
Roughly 20 minutes later, the controller appeared to blame himself. "We were dealing with an emergency earlier," the controller said. "I messed up."
"It was an aviation disaster the likes of which we have not seen here in over three decades," New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said at a news conference Monday afternoon.
"But it's a deeply human story where two young pilots left their homes expecting to return to their families, and they will not, and this is what pains everyone."
Forest had worked for Jazz Aviation, which operated the Air Canada Express plane, since December 2022, according to his LinkedIn profile.
He fought fires in Quebec as a bush pilot.
Gunther graduated in 2023 from the aviation technology program at Seneca Polytechnic in Toronto.
They were both based in Canada.
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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