Air Canada flight AC8646's collision late Sunday with a fire truck on a LaGuardia airport runway killed the plane's two pilots, injured dozens of others, and left passengers and witnesses stunned and stranded.
"We were literally like 100 metres away," said 23-year-old Leo Medina, who was onboard another plane on the tarmac when the crash happened. "It was like the plane got cut in half."
He told the BBC his plane then returned to the gate and that he had been waiting in the New York airport for more than 12 hours, sleeping on the floor on a bed of jackets.
In addition to killing the two pilots, the incident, which happened at 23:40 local time on Sunday (03:40 GMT on Monday), injured 41 people who were taken to hospital, some with serious injuries, and shut down LaGuardia through Monday morning.
After visiting the crash site, US Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said he was reminded of the importance of wearing seat belts - on an aircraft or in any other mode of transportation.
