The our bodies of the 2 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 aircraft on the Ottawa Worldwide Airport on Thursday afternoon. Capt. Antoine Forest’s physique was then flown from Ottawa to Montréal Trudeau Worldwide Airport.
A whole bunch of pilots and flight workers waited within the rain, lined up in entrance of Air Canada’s Montreal headquarters to honour Forest. The procession rolled by after sunset.
Captain Tim Perry, president of the Air Line Pilots Affiliation Canada informed journalists that the pilot neighborhood is mourning the 2 younger aviators.
He added {that a} thorough investigation shall be performed to stop such tragedies.
“No household ought to undergo this,” he mentioned. “It should be the promise that when a pilot leaves to work or when anybody leaves to journey by air that they arrive house alive. Our work begins tomorrow to stay as much as that promise.”
Forest’s loss of life has sparked an outpouring of sympathy in his hometown of Coteau-du-Lac, Que., southwest of Montreal. The Air Line Pilots Affiliation says the deaths of the 2 younger aviators have additionally shaken up the business.
“As we navigate the approaching days, look out for each other,” Gil Renaud, a captain with Jazz, informed his colleagues in a message posted by the affiliation.
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Renaud, who relies in Montreal, flies the CRJ-900 plane, the identical mannequin implicated within the tragedy on Sunday evening. He was not too long ago elected to serve a two-year time period as an officer on the pilots union. “If the seat subsequent to you feels slightly heavier or the silence feels slightly louder, attain out. We’re a neighborhood constructed on mutual help, and we’ll transfer ahead collectively.”
Gunther, 24, and Forest, 30, died when their Air Canada aircraft collided with a hearth truck after touchdown on the New York Metropolis airport. The hearth truck, responding to a separate incident aboard one other aircraft, was cleared to cross the runway, seconds earlier than the Air Canada aircraft landed.
Roughly 40 individuals had been handled at hospitals for accidents, together with the 2 firefighters and a flight attendant who survived after being thrown onto the tarmac whereas nonetheless strapped in her seat. Most have since been launched from hospital.
An Air Canada Specific jet taxis previous the wreckage of an Air Canada Specific jet, Wednesday, March 25, 2026, as upkeep crews put together to maneuver the aircraft from the runway the place it had collided with a Port Authority fireplace truck Sunday evening at LaGuardia Airport, in New York. (AP Picture/Yuki Iwamura).
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The runway the place the aircraft landed at LaGuardia was reopened Thursday morning. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey mentioned the tarmac resumed operations at round 10 a.m. after the runway and its related infrastructure had been “repaired, inspected and confirmed” to satisfy Federal Aviation Administration laws for protected operation.
The company, which oversees the area’s airports, mentioned reopening the second of two runways at LaGuardia, one of many busiest airports within the nation, will assist “restore full operational capability,” although it suggested travellers to nonetheless verify with their airline for flight statuses.
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LaGuardia continues to register probably the most delays and cancellations amongst airports in the US with greater than 300 cancelled within the final 24 hours, in response to FlightAware, a flight monitoring web site.
The destroyed Air Canada aircraft and the hearth truck had been towed from the crash website late Wednesday because the Nationwide Transportation Security Board continues its investigation. The company mentioned Thursday that the truck has been positioned in an undisclosed, safe location and deferred questions in regards to the standing of the aircraft to Air Canada.
The airline has mentioned the aircraft could be positioned in a hangar and that it might quickly start the method of reuniting passengers with their baggage and different private belongings.
Michael Rousseau, the corporate’s CEO, additionally apologized Thursday for his incapacity to specific himself in French after dealing with calls to resign over his English-only message of condolence.
This report by The Canadian Press was first revealed March 26, 2026.
— With information from Erika Morris in Montreal and The Related Press
© 2026 The Canadian Press