Passengers have relived the shocking moment when their Air Canada jet collided with a fire truck crossing a runway in its path at LaGuardia Airport.
The pilot and co-pilot were killed when their Bombardier CRJ-900 hit the Port Authority vehicle after landing at the New York airport on Sunday night.
The Jazz Aviation flight, operated on behalf of Air Canada, was carrying 72 passengers and four crew members; 41 people were injured in the collision.
Rebecca Liquori, who survived the crash, spoke to Erin Burnett OutFront on CNN on Monday, sharing her deep gratitude at being alive.
Liquori said the flight had been smooth until they came in for landing on Sunday evening. She recalled being confused when a flight attendant told them not to grab their luggage in case of an emergency landing.
As they descended, the plane began to experience turbulence, and the 20-year-old jet made a rough landing before hitting the vehicle.
“After that it was a huge, just, boom and we just all jolted out of our seats,” she said. “And it was an eerie couple of seconds and we realized ‘OK, the flight crew is not able to give us guidance.’”
Both pilots had died and one of the flight attendants had been ejected from their seat.
Liquori, a nurse, was sitting next to the emergency door exit, which she opened to let passengers escape by jumping off the wing of the plane, as the flight crew had not been able to set up the exit slide.
She said she was thankful that after the plane had not burst into flames after such a powerful collision.
“That’s what I was anticipating, then I said ‘Let me open this emergency exit and let’s get out of here before something else happens and get to safety’.”
In hindsight, Liquori said the pilots’ emergency braking saved their lives.
“Their quick thinking and quick action braking slowed the impact and lessened what could have been an even bigger fatality,” she said. “They‘re the heroes. I‘m forever indebted to them.”
She added, “They‘re the reasons I was able to make it home safe to see my boys and my heart goes out to their families. They‘re in my thoughts and prayers. I‘ve been crying all day about them.”
Another passenger, Jack Cabot, told Anderson Cooper 360 about the plane’s rough landing, saying, “We came in really hard.”
“It was an uneasy sense when we landed immediately because I felt like the pilots had just absolutely tried to slow the plane down as much as they possibly could,” Cabot said.
He said “everybody got completely jolted” when they hit the fire truck—which had been authorized to cross the runway by Air Traffic Control—because nobody had expected the collision.
“Come the moment of impact, a lot of people hit their head. There was blood, there was screaming, it was a really harrowing moment.”
Cabot said the plane continued to slide after the collision. “It was the original bang and complete panic for everybody, but then also, like, this moment where you realized the plane lost control of where it was going. And then the only question was ‘Will I live? Will I see my loved ones again?’”
After he had left the plane through the emergency door Liquori had opened, Cabot caught the aftermath of the crash on camera.
“The nose of the plane was originally buried in the ground, and the plane just started making this crashing sound and the front of the plane just lifted up about 20 feet in the air,” he said.
Cabot said that, despite the horror, the passengers banded together to form a “community” to get through the tragedy.
“There was people sobbing, there was people bleeding, but, I mean, people were sharing coats, people were helping each other with the blood coming off and there was definitely like a lot of people looking out for each other in this moment.”
