LaGuardia plane crash: Runway reopens after mangled aircraft, truck removed

In an update from NTSB officials on Monday night, they said the Air Canada flight's cockpit voice recorder and cockpit data recorder (black boxes) were retrieved.

Officials said a hole was cut into the tail area of the plane to gain access and retrieve the recorders. They were immediately sent to Washington, D.C. to be reviewed.

The NTSB briefing did not provide a lot more information as investigators are still making their way to the scene, but more details are expected to be shared Tuesday.

There is "tremendous amount of debris" from the collision which expands from the taxiway to the runway and across other areas, according to NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy. Investigators need to go through all the debris, collect and document evidence, which she said could take days before the runway could be reopened for operations.

NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy led a briefing on the agency's investigation so far.

The NTSB has preliminary information on staffing inside the tower at the time of the collision, but Homendy said they will only share it once it's been verified. More information on staffing and the background and experience of the pilot is expected to be shared by the NTSB Tuesday.

A team of 25 investigators arrived on scene at LaGuardia with more expected to arrive soon. The investigators were able to conduct a walking inspection and safety walk of the scene on Monday.

"We also began to collect information from FAA and others, certainly on air traffic control, staffing in the tower, communications training. We're looking for information today from the fire and rescue department on their crew and on their vehicles, what the capabilities were of their vehicles, and you know, everything from how much they weighed to what they were carrying. And then we began to form our investigative groups for this investigation," Homendy said at the briefing.

NTSB is collecting surveillance video, and the FAA will also be sharing Airport Surface Detection Equipment replay of the event that was provided to the controller.

"We will be looking at that where we can see where the aircraft was at certain times, and whether the truck was visible on as the we'll also be getting an as the analysis from the FAA tech center that will provide us information on whether alerts were generated, and other data, including distance of aircraft, the aircraft that was landing on Runway 4 as the firefighting vehicle was approaching the runway from taxiway Delta," Homendy said.

The agency's first full day of investigation will be Tuesday.

Homendy also noted the challenges the investigators faced to get to the scene, from LaGuardia's closure earlier Monday, to the ground stop at Newark and the ongoing travel disruptions from the partial government shutdown.

She said the NTSB's air traffic control specialist was stuck in TSA lines for three hours until they intervened with Houston airport authorities to get her to New York. Some also took the train or and many drove to New York, Homendy said.

Even before LaGuardia Airport reopened at 2 p.m. on Monday, travelers started spilling into Terminal B.

That's because even before the fatal collision, passengers were giving themselves at least three to four extra hours to wait in TSA lines.

By the time the first flight took off, it was a challenge just to find the end of the line.

Reporter CeFaan Kim has the latest on delays at LaGuardia Airport.

CeFaan Kim has the latest on the delays at LaGuardia Airport.

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.

The injured Port Authority officers involved in the crash were identified Monday as Sgt. Michael Orsillo and Officer Adrian Baez.

Baez was released on Monday and Orsillo will spend the night in the hospital.

"This could have been an even broader tragedy if everyone had not responded as quickly and effectively as they did," said Port Authority Executive Director Kathryn Garcia.

The last accident with a fatality was 34 years to the date of Sunday night's crash

"Yes it was an aviation disaster the likes of which we have not seen here in three decades," said Gov. Kathy Hochul.