An Air Canada flight attendant narrowly escaped being thrown more than 300 feet from the plane when she collided with a fire truck at LaGuardia Airport on Sunday night because of her “strong” jump seat, according to a safety expert.
Solange Tremblay was sitting in her jump seat — which was specially designed to withstand crashes — when Flight 8646T unloaded a Port Authority fire truck on its way to an emergency around 11:40 p.m.
Her daughter said the impact of the crash sent Tremblay flying 300 feet from the plane, but she only suffered a broken leg.
Jeff Guzzetti, a former federal crash investigator, said Tremblay escaped largely unscathed because of the special seat, which has four restraint points.
“The stewardess seat is a type of seat that folds down and is bolted to the wall, which is the same wall that the cockpit uses,” Guzzetti said.
“It’s a very strong seat,” he added. “They are designed to withstand more crash loads than passenger seats, because you need a flight attendant to help passengers off the plane after an accident.”
Tremblay’s daughter, Sarah Lepine, told Canadian news station TVA Nouvelles that what happened to her mother was “a complete miracle.”
“I’m still trying to understand how it all happened, but she definitely had a guardian angel watching over her,” Lepine said.
She added: “At the moment of impact, her seat came off the plane more than 100 meters (328 feet) away. They found her and she was still strapped into her seat.”
With mail wires