Air Canada pilot killed in LaGuardia fire truck crash had been flying since he was 16, family say

The pilots who are being hailed as heroes by the passengers they saved when their Air Canada Express flight collided with a Port Authority fire truck at New York’s LaGuardia Airport on Sunday have been identified.

They were named as Antoine Forest and Mackenzie Gunther. Both the pilot and co-pilot were based in Canada, Port Authority Executive Director Kathryn Garcia told reporters.

The Bombardier CRJ-900, operated by Jazz Aviation, was arriving from Montreal with 76 passengers and crew when it struck the emergency vehicle on Runway 4 at approximately 11.40 pm. The truck had been cleared to cross the active runway while responding to a separate incident involving a United Airlines flight.

The National Transportation Safety Board and the Transportation Safety Board of Canada are conducting a joint investigation into the collision.

The nearly 14-hour closure forced the cancellation of more than 500 flights on Monday.

Antoine Forest

Forest’s family has confirmed that the Coteau-du-Lac, Quebec, native was one of the two pilots who died in Sunday’s crash. Relatives spoke with The Toronto Star on Monday to identify Forest, who lived in the small town located about 25 miles southwest of Montreal.

Forest’s great-aunt, Jeannette Gagnier – whom he considered a grandmother – told the Star that he had been flying since he was 16 years old.

“He was always taking courses and flying,” Gagnier said, recalling how he first learned to pilot bush planes as a teenager. “He never stopped.”

Forest spent his youth between his home in Quebec and Hawkesbury, Ontario, where he and his younger brother spent summers fishing and watching television with Gagnier.

During his 11th-grade year, he moved in with Gagnier specifically to improve his English, a step he believed was vital for his future career as a pilot.

According to his professional records and LinkedIn profile, Forest began his career flying smaller bush planes, such as the de Havilland Canada Beaver and Otter, for Air Saguenay. He later moved on to pilot twin-engine aircraft for ExactAir before joining Jazz Aviation as a first officer in December 2022.

Photos on Forest’s Facebook page reflect his love for the outdoors, showing him hiking snow-capped mountains and spending time on the water.

Gagnier, who received the news of the crash from her son on Monday, remembered the pilot as a “handsome young man” who would still cuddle with her at bedtime during his summer visits as a child.

“It’s a very bad day for me,” she told the Star.

While investigators are still analyzing flight data, survivors continue to point to the crew’s actions as a reason more lives weren’t lost.

Reports from the cabin suggest the pilots attempted to deploy reverse thrust in the final seconds – a move that may have prevented the jet from veering further off course after the nose was destroyed.

Mackenzie Gunther

Mackenzie Gunther, the first officer on the flight, was also killed in the collision, according to Radio-Canada sources.

Seneca Polytechnic, a multi-campus public college with locations in the Greater Toronto Area and Peterborough, shared in a statement that Gunther was one of the school’s alumni.

“Mr. Gunther graduated from the Honours Bachelor of Aviation Technology (FPR) program in 2023,” the statement read. “Through the Jazz Aviation Pathways Program, he joined Jazz Aviation immediately after graduation and began his professional flying career.

“Seneca sends our deepest condolences to Mr. Gunther’s family and friends, and to his former colleagues and professors,” the statement continued. “He will be deeply missed.

“To honour the memory of Mr. Gunther, flags at Seneca’s campuses will be lowered to half-mast on Tuesday, March 24.”

Rebecca Liquori, who was a passenger on the plane, told CNN that she is “forever indebted” to the pilots.

“I felt like the pilots saved our lives,” she said. “They’re the reasons I was able to make it home safe to see my boys, and my heart goes out to their families.”

Another passenger, Joe, described the two pilots as “heroes” while speaking to CNN.

“Those two pilots, I truly believe that whatever they did at the end, whether it was pulling a break or trying to stop or divert at the last moment, they saved everybody on board,” he said. “I will be forever grateful to them, and they’re always going to be heroes to me.”

Solange Tremblay

Flight attendant Solange Tremblay suffered multiple fractures in the crash, according to her daughter.

Speaking to Quebec’s TVA News, Sarah Lépine said that her mother was strapped into her seat behind the pilots at the moment of impact.

The force of the collision with the fire truck was so severe that it ejected Tremblay from the aircraft, throwing her more than 320 feet onto the tarmac.

“It’s a complete miracle. At the moment of impact, her seat was ejected more than 100 meters from the plane. They found her and she was still strapped into her seat,” Lépine added.

“She had a guardian angel watching over her,” Lépine continued. “It could have been much worse.”

Tremblay will undergo surgery for a broken leg at the hospital, according to Lépine.

Well-wishers have flocked to Tremblay’s Facebook page, with many sending their “thoughts and prayers.”

Just weeks ago, Tremblay responded to a post claiming that aircraft passengers had grabbed their luggage while evacuating from a plane in a separate incident. The post suggested that trying to take carry-on luggage during an evacuation should be “punishable.”

“Yes absolutely!” Tremblay wrote in response. “Life time (sic) ban & A huge fine ! A human life is more important.”

Officer Adrian Baez

Adrian Baez is one of the two Port Authority officers inside the truck that collided with the plane.

Both men were injured, Bobby Egbert, a spokesperson for the Port Authority Police Benevolent Association, told The New York Times.

Kathryn Garcia told reporters that the two men had been taken to New York-Presbyterian Queens.

Baez was later released from the hospital on Monday, according to Egbert.

Sgt. Michael Orsillo

Sergeant Michael Orsillo, the other officer who was inside the truck, remains hospitalized, according to Egbert.

David Soucie, a safety analyst at CNN, revealed that many more lives could have been lost if the plane had collided with the truck in a different manner.

“This could have been much, much worse,” he told the network. “Because that aircraft hit directly in the middle of the fire truck, the fire truck was moved forward, and the aircraft was damaged in the nose.”

Soucie said that if the truck had been “40 feet back,” the plane’s wing, fuel cells, or engines could have been damaged. That could have caused a fire to break out, leading to further fatalities.

“So as tragic as this is for the two that we’ve lost, just out of pure luck, that airplane hit in the middle of that fire truck and reduced the number of fatalities significantly,” he said.