Pilots Involved In Air Canada LaGuardia Plane Incident Identified – Photos Of Them

Who Was First Officer Mackenzie Gunther?

The co-pilot was Mackenzie Gunther, a young aviator who had only recently begun his professional career. Gunther graduated from Seneca Polytechnic with an Honours Bachelor of Aviation Technology in 2023.

Through the Jazz Aviation Pathways Program, he moved directly from graduation into the first officer seat — making Flight 8646 part of what was still a very new chapter.

Before aviation, his LinkedIn shows steady, unglamorous groundwork: a co-op stint as acting ramp lead at Porter Airlines in 2022, and seasonal landscaping work before that. He had been building toward this for years.

Seneca mourned him publicly, calling the news “tragic for our community.” Flags at all Seneca campuses were lowered to half-mast on Tuesday, March 24, in his honor.

What Passengers Said

A passenger who identified himself on Reddit as having been on the flight posted images from the tarmac and described the final seconds before impact.

In a follow-up comment, he wrote: “We had just touched down and maybe about 30 seconds later we all felt a jolt forward, then a loud bang, and what felt like sliding sideways down the runway.”

He continued, “I’m sorry if I’m not using proper terms here. But someone did say the pilot tried to reverse thrust at the last second. Honestly, they likely saved our lives. I wish I could tell their families how thankful I am. They are heroes ❤️.”

The flight was carrying 72 passengers and four crew members from Montreal to New York when it struck the Port Authority fire truck on the runway.

The collision did not happen in silence. Air traffic control audio captured the full chain of events that led up to the moment of impact — a recording that now serves as a minute-by-minute account of how everything unraveled.

The chilling timeline surrounding the LaGuardia Airport collision involving an Air Canada flight and an emergency truck was revealed on March 23, 2026.

What started as an onboard odor complaint in the late hours of Sunday, March 22, quickly spiraled into a deadly runway incident, and the audio only makes it more unsettling.

A Routine Problem Turned Urgent

According to an NBC New York report, the trouble began when Flight 2384 declared an emergency after flight attendants in the back of the aircraft reportedly became sick because of an odd smell.

The urgency comes through almost immediately in the transcript of the recording. At 1:35, a voice says, “2384 is declaring an emergency. Flight Attendants in the back are feeling ill because of the odor. We will need to go into any available gates at this time.”

That request did not appear to have an easy solution. Just seconds later, the discussion turned to finding space for the aircraft, with one line making clear the situation was already getting complicated.

At 1:55, someone is heard asking, “Do you guys have any gate for United? Because now it’s declaring an emergency, they want to get out.”

Then at 3:04, the pressure seemed to build even more:

“Hey, I’ll say it again, LaGuardia. Now that United says he needs a gate, but so now he’s declaring an emergency, but the ramp doesn’t have a gate for him.”

The Tension Kept Building on the Ground

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