A flight attendant on an Air Canada aircraft that collided with a fire truck at LaGuardia Airport Sunday night survived being thrown more than 300 feet from the plane, a result aviation experts say may be tied to the design of onboard safety equipment, as reported by The New York Post.
Solange Tremblay was seated in a jump seat at the time of the crash involving Flight 8646, which struck a Port Authority fire truck around 11:40 p.m. as the emergency vehicle was responding to another incident.
According to her daughter, Tremblay was ejected from the aircraft during the impact but survived with a fractured leg.
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Sunday night, March 22, 2026. LaGuardia Airport is already stretched thin. A United Airlines flight has aborted its takeoff after an anti-ice warning light comes on, flight attendants in the back are feeling ill from… pic.twitter.com/eQyRL9ebmt
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Jeff Guzzetti, a former federal crash investigator, said the structure and restraint system of the jump seat likely played a significant role in her survival.
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“The flight attendant’s seat is kind of a jump seat that folds down and is bolted to the wall, the same wall that the cockpit utilizes,” said Guzzetti.
“It’s a very robust seat,” he added.
“It’s designed to withstand probably more crash loads than passenger seats because you need the flight attendant to help passengers get out of an airplane after a crash.”
Tremblay’s daughter, Sarah Lepine, described the incident as extraordinary while speaking to Canadian outlet TVA Nouvelles.
“I’m still trying to understand how all this happened,” Lepine said, “but she definitely has a guardian angel watching over her.”
Lepine said her mother remained secured in the seat even after being ejected from the aircraft.
“At the moment of impact, her seat was ejected more than 100 meters (328 feet) from the plane. They found her and she was still strapped into her seat,” she said.
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