The rain was coming down hard over LaGuardia Airport late Sunday night when everything went wrong. Mackenzie Gunther, a young first officer just starting to build his career, was in the cockpit doing his job. Moments later, he was gone.
Gunther has now been formally identified as one of the two pilots killed in the devastating runway collision involving Air Canada Express Flight 646. He was flying alongside Captain Antoine Forest, 30, as the aircraft approached its final phase on a route from Montreal to New York. What should have been a routine landing turned into a tragedy in seconds.
Gunther’s path to the cockpit had been clear and focused. He graduated from Seneca College in 2023 with an Honours Bachelor of Aviation Technology. Soon after, he joined the Jazz Aviation Pathways Program, a move that quickly placed him in the right seat of a Bombardier CRJ-900. Friends and colleagues say he was driven, disciplined, and excited about the future.
That future ended on the runway. The aircraft was traveling at roughly 150 miles per hour when it collided with a Port Authority fire truck that had entered the runway. The impact was violent. Surveillance footage later showed a massive spray of water as the jet slammed into the vehicle, sending the truck spinning and tearing apart the front section of the plane.
Both Gunther and Forest were killed instantly. Behind them, chaos unfolded. The aircraft carried 72 passengers and four crew members. In total, 41 people were rushed to nearby hospitals. Among the injured were two firefighters inside the truck and a flight attendant who was thrown from the aircraft during the crash.
Investigators say the fire truck had been cleared to cross the runway to respond to another aircraft dealing with a serious onboard odor. Air traffic controllers realized the danger too late. Audio recordings reveal urgent commands telling the vehicle to stop, but there was no time left to prevent the collision.
The damage on the ground told the same story. Images from the scene showed the aircraft’s nose completely destroyed and the fire truck heavily mangled. Emergency crews flooded the area as the airport shut down operations. Flights were halted, and LaGuardia remained partially closed as responders worked through the wreckage.
Federal investigators are now working to understand how this happened. The cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder have both been recovered and sent for analysis. Officials are also reviewing air traffic control operations, including staffing levels and communication timing during the critical moments leading up to the crash.
For those who knew Mackenzie Gunther, the investigation feels secondary to the loss. He was at the very start of what promised to be a long career in aviation. Now, his story is tied forever to a night of heavy rain, a split-second failure, and a runway that became the site of an unimaginable tragedy.
