The bodies of the two Air Canada pilots who died in a collision on a runway at LaGuardia Airport on Sunday have returned to Canada.
Pilots carried the casket of Jazz Aviation first officer Mackenzie Gunther off a plane at the Ottawa International Airport on Thursday afternoon. Capt. Antoine Forest's body was then flown from Ottawa to Montréal Trudeau International Airport.
Hundreds of pilots and flight staff waited in the rain, lined up in front of Air Canada's Montreal headquarters to honour Forest. The procession rolled through after sundown.
Captain Tim Perry, president of the Air Line Pilots Association Canada told journalists that the pilot community is mourning the two young aviators.
He added that a thorough investigation will be conducted to prevent such tragedies.
"No family should go through this," he said. "It must be the promise that when a pilot leaves to work or when anyone leaves to travel by air that they come home alive. Our work begins tomorrow to live up to that promise."
Forest’s death has sparked an outpouring of sympathy in his hometown of Coteau-du-Lac, Que., southwest of Montreal. The pilots' association says the deaths of the two young aviators have shaken up the industry.
"As we navigate the coming days, look out for one another," Gil Renaud, a captain with Jazz, told his colleagues in a message posted by the association.
Renaud, who is based in Montreal, flies the CRJ-900 aircraft, the same model implicated in the tragedy on Sunday night. He was recently elected to serve a two-year term as an officer at the pilots union. "If the seat next to you feels a little heavier or the silence feels a little louder, reach out. We are a community built on mutual support, and we will move forward together."
Gunther, 24, and Forest, 30, died when their Air Canada plane collided with a fire truck after landing at the New York City airport. The fire truck, responding to a separate incident aboard another plane, was cleared to cross the runway, seconds before the Air Canada plane landed.
Roughly 40 people were treated at hospitals for injuries, including the two firefighters and a flight attendant who survived after being thrown onto the tarmac while still strapped in her seat. Most have since been released from hospital.
The runway where the plane landed at LaGuardia was reopened Thursday morning. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said the tarmac resumed operations at around 10 a.m. after the runway and its associated infrastructure were “repaired, inspected and confirmed” to meet Federal Aviation Administration regulations for safe operation.
The agency, which oversees the region’s airports, said reopening the second of two runways at LaGuardia, one of the busiest airports in the country, will help “restore full operational capacity,” though it advised travellers to still check with their airline for flight statuses.
LaGuardia continues to register the most delays and cancellations among airports in the United States with more than 300 cancelled in the last 24 hours, according to FlightAware, a flight tracking website.
The destroyed Air Canada plane and the fire truck were towed from the crash site late Wednesday as the National Transportation Safety Board continues its investigation. The agency said Thursday that the truck has been placed in an undisclosed, secure location and deferred questions about the status of the plane to Air Canada.
The airline has said the plane would be placed in a hangar and that it would soon begin the process of reuniting passengers with their baggage and other personal belongings.
Michael Rousseau, the company's CEO, also apologized Thursday for his inability to express himself in French after facing calls to resign over his English-only message of condolence.
Picture Courtesy: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
