Flight attendant thrown from Air Canada plane survives in a ‘total miracle’

A flight attendant still strapped into her seat survived a fall from an Air Canada plane that collided with a fire truck at New York’s LaGuardia Airport, her daughter said Monday.

It’s a “total miracle,” Sarah Lepine told Canadian news station TVA Nouvelles.

Her mother, Solange Tremblay, suffered multiple fractures in one leg and will need surgery but otherwise things were fine, she said. An aviation safety expert said it was likely helped by her sitting on a four-point seat used by crew members.

“I’m still trying to understand how this all happened, but she definitely had a guardian angel watching over her,” Lepine said.

The plane, carrying more than 70 passengers, was landing when it collided with a fire engine that was responding to a problem on another plane on Sunday evening. The nose of the Canadian Airlines plane was destroyed and the pilot and co-pilot were killed.

Aviation safety expert Jeff Guzzetti also called Tremblay’s survival a miracle “compared to the destruction of the nose of the plane.”

“The flight attendant seat is like a jump seat that folds down and is bolted to the wall, which is the same wall that the cockpit uses,” said Guzzetti, a former federal crash investigator.

“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.”

In 2013, at least two flight attendants were injured when they were thrown from an Asiana Airlines plane that struck a seawall while landing at San Francisco International Airport. There were 291 people on board Asiana Flight 214, and three girls were killed.