They saved 72 lives in their final moments—but what happened inside that cockpit will haunt you.
In the last seconds before disaster struck at LaGuardia, the Air Canada cockpit became the stage for an unthinkable act of courage. As chaos unfolded and time ran out, the crew made split-second decisions that ultimately saved 72 passengers—knowing full well they might never walk away. Every switch they flipped, every command they gave, was a race against fate. And while the world would later count the survivors, few could truly grasp the sacrifice made in those final, unseen moments behind the cockpit door.
They didn’t make it home—but their actions ensured dozens of others did. Now, as investigators piece together the final timeline, a deeper story is beginning to emerge—one not just of tragedy, but of quiet heroism under unimaginable pressure. And as the truth slowly comes to light, one question continues to linger: what exactly happened in those final seconds that changed everything?
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An Air Canada Express CRJ-900 sits on the runway after colliding with a Port Authority fire truck at LaGuardia Airport on March 24, 2026 in New York City.Credit : Michael M. Santiago/Getty
The black box has been recovered from the Air Canada plane that was involved in the fatal crash at LaGuardia Airport over the weekend.
National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy revealed this information at a press conference on Monday, March 23, less than a day after the passenger jet collided with a firetruck that was crossing the runway.
To access the black box, which includes a cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and flight data recorder (FDR), Homendy said crews had to “cut a hole on the roof of the aircraft.”
The black box was then transported back to NTSB headquarters in Washington, D.C., to be analyzed, according to Homendy.
At a second press conference the following day, NTSB investigator Doug Brazy went over preliminary information obtained from the final three minutes of the CVR recording, including that the firetruck that crossed in front of the Air Canada plane was told to stop twice before the collision on runway 4.
Homendy said it is currently unclear if the officers inside the firetruck, who both survived and will be interviewed, heard the warnings. She also noted that the firetruck involved in the crash did not have a transponder.
The Air Canada Express CRJ-900 was traveling from Montréal-Trudeau International Airport to New York with 72 passengers and four crew members on board when it collided with the firetruck as it was landing, officials said.
Two pilots, captain Antoine Forest and first officer Mackenzie Gunther, were killed in the crash.
Another 39 people on the plane and two officers on the firetruck — which was responding to reports of an unknown odor in the cockpit of another plane when the crash occurred — were transported to a hospital. As of Tuesday, March 24, six of those individuals remained in the hospital.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey previously said that one of the officers on the truck, Adrian Baez, had been released from the hospital, while Sgt. Michael Orsillo would remain hospitalized for observation. When reached for comment on Wednesday, March 25, a spokesperson told PEOPLE that Orsillo is still stable and recovering.
At Tuesday’s briefing, Homendy confirmed there were two air traffic controllers working multiple jobs at the time of the incident, which the NTSB chairwoman said is part of standard operating procedure at LaGuardia during the midnight shift.
The NTSB chairwoman also said there is no indication that fatigue was a factor, but that they’re still in the process of verifying information.
The NTSB is leading the investigation into the crash.
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