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

NEW YORK (AP) — A flight attendant still strapped in her seat survived being thrown 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.

She said her mother, Solange Tremblay, had multiple fractures to one leg and will need surgery but otherwise was OK. An aviation safety expert said she likely was helped by being in a seat with a four-point restraint used by crew members.

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

The jet, carrying more than 70 passengers, was landing when it collided with a fire truck that was responding to a problem at another plane Sunday night. The nose of the Air Canada plane was destroyed, and the pilot and copilot were killed.

Aviation safety expert Jeff Guzzetti, too, called Tremblay’s survival a miracle when “compared to the destruction of the nose of the airplane.”

“The flight attendant’s seat is kind of a jump seat that folds down and is bolted to the wall, the same wall that the cockpit utilizes,” said Guzzetti, a former federal crash investigator.

“It’s a very robust seat,” he added. “It’s designed to withstand probably more crash loads than passenger seats because you need the flight attendant to help passengers get out of an airplane after a crash.”

In 2013, at least two flight attendants were injured when they were thrown from an Asiana Airlines flight that crashed into a sea wall while landing at San Francisco International Airport. There were 291 people aboard Asiana Flight 214, and three girls were killed.

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White reported from Detroit. Associated Press reporter Rebecca Boone in Boise, Idaho, contributed to this story.