Montreal Plane-Spotting Park Adds Memorial For Canada Pilots

The memorial honors Antoine Forest and Mackenzie Gunther, who were killed in a March 22 runway collision.

NTSB Preliminary Report Air Canada Jet Crash at LaGuardia Kills Two Pilots
[Credit: Minh K Tran | Shutterstock]
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Key Takeaways:

  • A permanent memorial has been installed at Montreal's Jacques-de-Lesseps plane-spotting park, honoring Jazz Aviation pilots Antoine Forest and Mackenzie Gunther.
  • The pilots died in a March 22 accident at New York’s LaGuardia Airport when their Air Canada-operated aircraft collided with an airport emergency vehicle on the runway.
  • Aéroports de Montréal (ADM) created the memorial to recognize the two young men who died while performing their duties and pursuing their passion.
  • A preliminary NTSB report indicated that both the flight and an emergency vehicle were cleared onto the same runway, with the vehicle failing to stop despite controller instructions, and highlighted issues with the airport's detection system and untrackable vehicles.
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A memorial honoring Jazz Aviation pilots Antoine Forest and Mackenzie Gunther has been installed at Montreal’s Jacques-de-Lesseps plane-spotting park, a location where members of the aviation community had gathered following the March 22 accident at New York’s LaGuardia Airport.

Forest, 30, and Gunther, 24, were killed after their aircraft, operating for Air Canada, landed at LaGuardia and was involved in a collision with an airport emergency vehicle on the runway. The site of the memorial had previously become a place for flowers and other remembrances left by aviation enthusiasts.

“ADM therefore decided to create this permanent memorial to honour these two young men who died while performing their duties and pursuing their passion,” Aéroports de Montréal spokesperson Émilie Chevrette told CBC.

The National Transportation Safety Board released its preliminary report on the accident last week. In that report, the NTSB described a sequence in which the flight had been cleared to land, while a rescue vehicle was later also cleared to cross the same runway. The report said controllers issued multiple instructions for the vehicle to stop as the aircraft approached, but its speed continued to increase. Investigators also found that the airport’s surface detection system did not generate an alert and that the group of response vehicles could not be reliably tracked because they were not equipped with transponders.

Matt Ryan

Matt is AVweb's lead editor. His eyes have been turned to the sky for as long as he can remember. Now a fixed-wing pilot, instructor and aviation writer, Matt also leads and teaches a high school aviation program in the Dallas area. Beyond his lifelong obsession with aviation, Matt loves to travel and has lived in Greece, Czechia and Germany for studies and for work.

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Replies: 1

  1. Ah SF reporting never disappoints - achieving yet another new low in accuracy. They’re Chorus Aviation Pilots for a start, they use the moniker Jazz for marketing & call sign, Air Canada “Jazz” is on the hull. They are not “Canada Pilots”.

    Seriously, get an editor, maybe the local high school paper has one to spare.

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